anche to fire his
shots at me.'

Near the fashionable hour of the afternoon my father took my arm,
Captain DeWitt a stick, and we walked into the throng and buzz.

'Whenever you are, to quote our advocate, the theme of tea-tables,
Richie,' said my father, 'walk through the crowd: it will wash you. It
is doing us the honour to observe us. We in turn discover an interest in
its general countenance.'

He was received, as we passed, with much staring; here and there a
lifting of hats, and some blunt nodding that incensed me, but he,
feeling me bristle, squeezed my hand and talked of the scene, and ever
and anon gathered a line of heads and shed an indulgent bow along them-;
so on to the Casino. Not once did he offend my taste and make my acute
sense of self-respect shiver by appearing grateful for a recognition, or
anxious to court it, though the curtest salute met his acknowledgement.

The interior of the Casino seemed more hostile. I remarked it to him. 'A
trifle more eye-glassy,' he murmured. He was quite at his easy there.

'We walk up and down, my son,' he said, in answer to a question of mine,
'because there are very few who can; even walking is an art; and if
nobody does, the place is dull.'

'The place is pretty well supplied with newspapers,' said Captain
DeWitt.

'And dowagers, friend Jorian. They are cousins. 'Tis the fashion to have
our tattle done by machinery. They have their opportunity to compare
the portrait with the original. Come, invent some scandal for us; let
us make this place our social Exchange. I warrant a good bold piece of
invention will fit them, too, some of them. Madam,'--my father bowed
low to the beckoning of a fan, 'I trust your ladyship did not chance to
overhear that last remark I made?'

The lady replied: 'I should have shut my eyes if I had. I called you to
tell me, who is the young man?'

'For twenty years I have lived in the proud belief that he is my son!'

'I would not disturb it for the world.' She did me the honour to inspect
me from the lowest waistcoat button to the eyebrows. 'Bring him to me
to-night. Captain DeWitt, you have forsaken my whist-tables.'

'Purely temporary fits of unworthiness, my lady.'

'In English, gout?'

'Not gout in the conscience, I trust,' said my father.

'Oh! that's curable,' laughed the captain.

'You men of repartee would be nothing without your wickedness,' the lady
observed.

'Man was supposed to be incomplete--' Captain DeWitt a