dreadful responsibility just thrust upon me. Our host has been suddenly
called away, and I am left to take his place."

Miss Nevil was slightly startled. Nevertheless, she smiled graciously.
"From what I hear this is no new function of yours; that is, if there
really IS a Mr. Rushbrook. I am inclined to think him a myth."

"You make me wish he were," retorted Somers, gallantly; "but as I
couldn't reign at all, except in his stead, I shall look to you to lend
your rightful grace to my borrowed dignity."

The more general announcement to the company was received with a few
perfidious regrets from the more polite, but with only amused surprise
by the majority. Indeed, many considered it "characteristic"--"so like
Bob Rushbrook," and a few enthusiastic friends looked upon it as a
crowning and intentional stroke of humor. It remained, however, for the
gentleman from Siskyou to give the incident a subtlety that struck Miss
Nevil's fancy. "It reminds me," he said in her hearing, "of ole Kernel
Frisbee, of Robertson County, one of the purlitest men I ever struck.
When he knew a feller was very dry, he'd jest set the decanter afore
him, and managed to be called outer the room on bus'ness. Now, Bob
Rushbrook's about as white a man as that. He's jest the feller, who,
knowing you and me might feel kinder restrained about indulging our
appetites afore him, kinder drops out easy, and leaves us alone."
And she was impressed by an instinct that the speaker really felt the
delicacy he spoke of, and that it left no sense of inferiority behind.

The dinner, served in a large, brilliantly-lit saloon, that in floral
decoration and gilded columns suggested an ingenious blending of a
steamboat table d'hote and "harvest home," was perfect in its cuisine,
even if somewhat extravagant in its proportions.

"I should be glad to receive the salary that Rushbrook pays his chef,
and still happier to know how to earn it as fairly," said Somers to his
fair companion.

"But is his skill entirely appreciated here?" she asked.

"Perfectly," responded Somers. "Our friend from Siskyou over there
appreciates that 'pate' which he cannot name as well as I do. Rushbrook
himself is the only exception, yet I fancy that even HIS simplicity and
regularity in feeding is as much a matter of business with him as
any defect in his earlier education. In his eyes, his chef's greatest
qualification is his promptness and fertility. Have you noticed that
ornament b