ain and I asked him kind of
anxiously what he thought would be the proper thing for a base-born New
York millionaire to do under the circumstances--what he would approve of
himself."

Sir Nigel was disgusted to see the narrator twist his mouth into a
sweet, shrewd, repressed grin even as he expectorated into the nearest
receptacle. The grin was greeted by a shout of laughter from his
companions.

"What did he say, Stebbins?" someone cried.

"He said," explained Mr. Stebbins deliberately, "he said that an
allowance was the proper thing. He said that a man of his rank must have
resources, and that it wasn't dignified for him to have to ask his wife
or his wife's father for money when he wanted it. He said an allowance
was what he felt he had a right to expect. And then he twisted his
moustache and said, 'what proposition' did I make--what would I allow
him?"

The storyteller's hearers evidently knew him well. Their laughter was
louder than before.

"Let's hear the rest, Joe! Let's hear it!"

"Well," replied Mr. Stebbins almost thoughtfully, "I just got up and
said, 'Well, it won't take long for me to answer that. I've always
been fond of my children, and Lily is rather my pet. She's always had
everything she wanted, and she always shall. She's a good girl and she
deserves it. I'll allow you----" The significant deliberation of his
drawl could scarcely be described. "I'll allow you just five minutes to
get out of this room, before I kick you out, and if I kick you out of
the room, I'll kick you down the stairs, and if I kick you down the
stairs, I shall have got my blood comfortably warmed up and I'll kick
you down the street and round the block and down to Hoboken, because
you're going to take the steamer there and go back to the place you came
from, to the Slosh thing or whatever you call it. We haven't a damned
bit of use for you here.' And believe it or not, gentlemen----" looking
round with the wry-mouthed smile, "he took that passage and back he
went. And Lily's living with her mother and I mean to hold on to her."

Sir Nigel got up and left the club when the story was finished. He took
a long walk down Broadway, gnawing his lip and holding his head in the
air. He used blasphemous language at intervals in a low voice. Some of
it was addressed to his fate and some of it to the vulgar mercantile
coarseness and obtuseness of other people.

"They don't know what they are talking of," he said. "It is unheard of.