s not quite at
his ease. He did not understand the remarkable decorum of the young men.
He himself belonged to the age of "bumpers and no heel taps," and nobody
at his board to-night seemed to care about drinking bumpers, even out
of the poor, little, newfangled claret-glasses, that held only a
thimbleful apiece. He had never known a lot of gentlemen, all by
themselves, to be so discreet. Before the evening was over he became
aware of the fact that he was the only man who was proposing toasts, and
then he proposed them no more.

Things had changed since he was a young buck, and gave bachelor parties.
Why, he could remember seeing his own good father--an irreproachable
gentleman, surely--lock the door of his dining-room on the inside--ay,
at just such a dinner as this--and swear that no guest of his should go
out of that room sober. And his word had been kept. Times were changing.
He thought, somehow, that these young men needed more good port in their
veins.

Toward the end of the festivities he grew silent. He gave no more
toasts, and drank no more bumpers, although he might safely have put
another bottle or two under his broad waistcoat. But he leaned back in
his chair, and rested one hand on the table, playing with his wineglass
in an absent-minded way. There was a vague smile on his face; but every
now and then he knit his heavy gray brows as if he were trying to work
out some problem of memory. Mr. Philip Waters and the French count were
talking across him; he had been in the conversation, but he had dropped
out some time before. At last he rose, with his brows knit, and pulled
out his huge watch, and looked at its face. Everybody turned toward him,
and, at the other end of the table, his son half rose to his feet. He
put the watch back in his pocket, and said, in his clear, deep voice:
"Gentlemen, I think we will rejoin the ladies."

There was a little impulsive stir around the table, and then he seemed
to understand that he had wandered, and a frightened look came over his
face. He tottered backward, and swayed from side to side. Mr. Philip
Waters and the Frenchman had their arms behind him before he could fall,
and in a second or two he had straightened himself up. He made a
stately, tremulous apology for what he called his "infelicitous
absence of mind," and then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering
no one to go with him.

[Illustration: And then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering no
one to