verriding all our laws, his handsome face, the lord and possessor of
beauty that he looked, as it were a star shining on his forehead, gained
the old complete mastery over Ripton, who had been, mentally at least,
half patronizing him till then, because he knew more of London and life,
and was aware that his friend now depended upon him almost entirely.

After a second circle of the claret, the hero caught his lieutenant's
eye across the table, and said:

"We must go out and talk over that law-business, Rip, before you go. Do
you think the old lady has any chance?"

"Not a bit!" said Ripton, authoritatively.

"But it's worth fighting--eh, Rip?"

"Oh, certainly!" was Ripton's mature opinion.

Richard observed that Ripton's father seemed doubtful. Ripton cited
his father's habitual caution. Richard made a playful remark on the
necessity of sometimes acting in opposition to fathers. Ripton agreed to
it--in certain cases.

"Yes, yes! in certain cases," said Richard.

"Pretty legal morality, gentlemen!" Algernon interjected; Hippias
adding: "And lay, too!"

The pair of uncles listened further to the fictitious dialogue, well
kept up on both sides, and in the end desired a statement of the old
lady's garrulous case; Hippias offering to decide what her chances were
in law, and Algernon to give a common-sense judgment.

"Rip will tell you," said Richard, deferentially signalling the lawyer.
"I'm a bad hand at these matters. Tell them how it stands, Rip."

Ripton disguised his excessive uneasiness under endeavours to right his
position on his chair, and, inwardly praying speed to the claret jug
to come and strengthen his wits, began with a careless aspect:
"Oh, nothing! She very curious old character! She--a--wears a wig.
She--a--very curious old character indeed! She--a--quite the old style.
There's no doing anything with her!" and Ripton took a long breath to
relieve himself after his elaborate fiction.

"So it appears," Hippias commented, and Algernon asked: "Well? and about
her wig? Somebody stole it?" while Richard, whose features were grim
with suppressed laughter, bade the narrator continue.

Ripton lunged for the claret jug. He had got an old lady like an
oppressive bundle on his brain, and he was as helpless as she was. In
the pangs of ineffectual authorship his ideas shot at her wig, and then
at her one characteristic of extreme obstinacy, and tore back again at
her wig, but she would not be animated. The