w any one to feel much embarrassed in his presence.
He was entirely easy, self-satisfied, and unaffected, and he had a way
of pouring out his confidences as though he had known Minola from her
birth upward.

"I hope you found a pleasant reception there?"

"Yes, well enough for that matter. I find my brother and his wife are
not anything like so popular as I was given to understand that they
were. I saw my brother in London--didn't I tell you?--before I went
down to Keeton, you know."

"No, I did not know that you had seen him; I hope he was glad to see
you, Mr. St. Paul?"

"Not he; I dare say he was very sorry I hadn't been wiped out by the
Indians. Do you know what being wiped out means?"

"Yes, I think I could guess that much. I suppose it means being
killed?"

"Of course. I mean to teach you all the slang of the West; I think a
nice girl never looks so nice as when she is talking good expressive
slang. Our British slang is all unmeaning stuff, you know; only
consists in calling a thing by some short vulgar word--or some long and
pompous word, the fun being in the pompousness; but the western slang
is a sort of picture-writing, don't you know?--a kind of compressed
metaphor, answering the purposes of an intellectual pemmican or
charqui. Do you know what these things are, Miss Grey?"

"Oh, yes; compressed meats of some kind, I suppose. But I don't think I
care about slang very much."

"You may be sure you will when you get over the defects of your Keeton
bringing up. But what was I going to tell you? Let me see. Oh, yes,
about my brother and his wife. The honest Keeton folks seem to have
forgotten them. But I was speaking, too, about my going to see my
brother in town. Oh, yes, I went to see him; he didn't want me, and he
made no bones about letting me know it. He thinks I have disgraced the
family; it was quite like the scene in the play--whose play is it?--I
am sure I don't remember--where Lord Foppington's brother goes to see
him, and is taken so coolly. I haven't read the play for more years
than you have lived in the world, I dare say, but it all came back upon
me in a moment. I felt like saying, 'Good-by, Foppington,' only that he
would never have understood the allusion, and would think I meant to
say he was a 'fop,' which he is not, bless him."

"Then your visit did not bring you any nearer to a reconciliation with
your brother?"

"Not a bit of it--pushed us further asunder, I think. The odd thing