bond, the simple swain and the polished coxcomb,
the lover in the heyday of reckless passion and the husband of maturer
years. But indeed, sir, I wander from the point. How mingled and
imperfect are all our sublunary joys. Maledicity! he exclaimed in
anguish. Would to God that foresight had but remembered me to take my
cloak along! I could weep to think of it. Then, though it had poured
seven showers, we were neither of us a penny the worse. But beshrew me,
he cried, clapping hand to his forehead, tomorrow will be a new day and,
thousand thunders, I know of a _marchand de capotes_, Monsieur Poyntz,
from whom I can have for a livre as snug a cloak of the French fashion
as ever kept a lady from wetting. Tut, tut! cries Le Fecondateur,
tripping in, my friend Monsieur Moore, that most accomplished traveller
(I have just cracked a half bottle AVEC LUI in a circle of the best wits
of the town), is my authority that in Cape Horn, _ventre biche_, they
have a rain that will wet through any, even the stoutest cloak. A
drenching of that violence, he tells me, _sans blague_, has sent more
than one luckless fellow in good earnest posthaste to another world.
Pooh! A _livre!_ cries Monsieur Lynch. The clumsy things are dear at a
sou. One umbrella, were it no bigger than a fairy mushroom, is worth ten
such stopgaps. No woman of any wit would wear one. My dear Kitty told me
today that she would dance in a deluge before ever she would starve in
such an ark of salvation for, as she reminded me (blushing piquantly and
whispering in my ear though there was none to snap her words but giddy
butterflies), dame Nature, by the divine blessing, has implanted it in
our hearts and it has become a household word that _il y a deux choses_
for which the innocence of our original garb, in other circumstances a
breach of the proprieties, is the fittest, nay, the only garment. The
first, said she (and here my pretty philosopher, as I handed her to her
tilbury, to fix my attention, gently tipped with her tongue the outer
chamber of my ear), the first is a bath... But at this point a bell
tinkling in the hall cut short a discourse which promised so bravely for
the enrichment of our store of knowledge.

Amid the general vacant hilarity of the assembly a bell rang and, while
all were conjecturing what might be the cause, Miss Callan entered and,
having spoken a few words in a low tone to young Mr Dixon, retired with
a profound bow to the company. The presence