won't frighten you in them as you say your maid was frightened at
you. If pajamas are unbecoming to you, why just imagine me in them!"

By Jove, I was devilish glad I was not supposed to hear, for I didn't
want to be required to imagine it. But as for them being unbecoming to
my darling--well, I knew she knew what I thought!

Later, when the evening had shaded off and the ladies had left us, we
sat in the smoking-room talking till late. I was astonished to find Foxy
Grandpa devilish entertaining and clever--not a bad sort at all. He
seemed to have no recollection of me at all, and therefore no grudges. I
had made up my mind by this time I wasn't going to marry the frump, no
matter what came or what Billings wanted, and I would tell him so in the
morning. But whoever did marry her--and it looked like it was going to
be the professor--would have some sort of compensation in Foxy Grandpa's
entertaining stories of Eastern scandal.

Billings' cub brother smoked in a corner of the room by himself and
drank innumerable slugs of whisky straight. Once I saw his father go
over to him and seem to remonstrate, but without effect.

Billings wanted his father to try my special import of cigarettes, so I
sent for Jenkins, who had arrived, to bring some down. And when he saw
Foxy Grandpa calmly sitting there by me, pulling at a straw, he almost
lost his balance. But I shook my head with covert warning.

"Ever see me before--eh?" asked the cub harshly, as he waved aside the
cigarettes Jenkins extended. "Last Wednesday night--remember?"

"Yes, sir," replied Jenkins, hesitatingly. Then he rolled an eye at me
and corrected himself hastily but firmly:

"No, sir; I don't recall _ever_ seeing you before, sir."

Of course, I knew he had not, but the cub got up with a sour laugh. Then
with a murmured gruff apology, he withdrew, saying he had a headache and
was going to bed. And, by Jove, what a look he gave me from the door!

"Midnight!" ejaculated some one at length, just as the professor
finished a jolly rum but interesting yarn of adventures in Tibet. We all
rose and I was answering a challenge of Billings' for a Sunday morning
game of billiards, when all of a sudden a scream rang out from somewhere
above. Then came a greater commotion--two voices raised in rapid and
excited colloquy. On top of this another scream, louder and more
piercing--a woman's call for help.

"One of the maids," Billings hazarded. "A mouse--"

"That was Fr