cock, that's very handsome of you,
considering the rope's at your throats. But we'll not take advantage of
your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed on
it too long. You pack of galley-slaves, you!" he spluttered suddenly,
"decoying young innocents with that devil's bait of yours--" His eye
fell on Polixena, and his voice softened unaccountably. "Ah, well, we
must all see the Carnival once, I suppose," he said. "All's well that
ends well, as the fellow says in the play; and now, if you please, Mr.
Bracknell, if you'll take the reverend gentleman's arm there, we'll
bid adieu to our hospitable entertainers, and right about face for the
Hepzibah."

The End of A Venetian Night's Entertainment

XINGU

December, 1911

Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as
though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded
the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other
indomitable huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four
winters of lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that
the entertainment of distinguished strangers became one of its accepted
functions; in recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated
"Osric Dane," on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to
be present at the next meeting.

The Club was to meet at Mrs. Ballinger's. The other members, behind
her back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness to cede
her rights in favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a more impressive
setting for the entertainment of celebrities; while, as Mrs. Leveret
observed, there was always the picture-gallery to fall back on.

Mrs. Plinth made no secret of sharing this view. She had always regarded
it as one of her obligations to entertain the Lunch Club's distinguished
guests. Mrs. Plinth was almost as proud of her obligations as she was
of her picture-gallery; she was in fact fond of implying that the one
possession implied the other, and that only a woman of her wealth
could afford to live up to a standard as high as that which she had set
herself. An all-round sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends,
was, in her opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly
stationed; but the power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to keep
footmen clearly intended her to maintain an equally specialized staff of
responsibilities. It was the more to be regretted that Mrs