the:--

"Come, come, my dear fellow, there's no nonsense between us, is there?
We have met in front of the same porringer; but I let you have your
share and I propose that you shall let me have mine." Jenkins' air of
amazement did not check him. "Let it be understood once for all. I
promised the Nabob that I'd present him to the duke as I presented you
long ago. Don't you interfere in what concerns me and me alone."

Jenkins, with his hand upon his heart, protested his innocence. He had
never had any such intention. Of course Monpavon was too close a friend
of the duke for any one else to--How could he have imagined such a
thing?

"I imagine nothing," said the old nobleman, more subdued, but still
very cold. "I simply wanted to have a perfectly frank explanation with
you on this subject."

The Irishman held out his broad open palm.

"My dear marquis, explanations are always frank between men of honor."

"Honor is a great word, Jenkins. Let us say men of good-breeding. That
is sufficient."

And as that same good-breeding, which he put forward as a supreme guide
of conduct, suddenly reminded him of his absurd plight, the marquis
offered a finger for his friend's demonstrative grasp and passed
hastily behind his curtain, while the other took his leave, in haste to
continue his round of visits.

* * *

What a magnificent practice this Jenkins had, to be sure! Nothing but
princely mansions, halls comfortably heated and filled with flowers on
every floor, downy, silk-lined alcoves, wherein disease became quiet
and refined, where nothing suggested the brutal hand that tosses upon a
bed of misery those who cease to work only to die. To tell the truth,
these clients of Dr. Jenkins were not patients at all. They would not
have been received at a hospital. As their organs had not even strength
enough to feel a shock, it was impossible to find the seat of their
trouble, and the physician leaning over them would have listened in
vain for the palpitation of suffering in those bodies which were
already inhabited by the inertia and silence of death. They were
weakened, exhausted, anaemic, consumed by their absurd mode of life, and
yet so attached to it that they strove desperately to prolong it. And
the Jenkins Pearls became famous just because of the lashing they
administered to jaded constitutions.

"Doctor, I implore you, let me go to the ball this evening!" a young
woman would say