awkward he handled his'n, compared to the smooth way Snick could do it.
I guess Pinckney must have spotted me comin' the steady gaze, for
pretty soon he gets me one side and whispers, "Don't appear to notice
it."

"All right," says I; "I'll look at his feet."

"No, no," says Pinckney, "just pretend you haven't discovered it. He's
very sensitive on the subject--thinks no one knows, and so on."

"But it's as plain as a gold tooth," says I.

"I know," says Pinckney; "but humour him. He's the right sort."

Pinckney wa'n't far off, either. For a gent that acted as though he'd
been born wearin' a high collar and a shiny hat, Sir Twiggle wasn't so
worse. Barrin' the stiffenin', which didn't wear off at all, he was a
decent kind of a haitch eater. Bein' dignified was something he
couldn't help. You'd never guessed, to look at him, that he'd ever
been mixed up in anything livelier'n layin' a church cornerstone, but
it leaks out that he had been through all kinds of scraps in India,
comes from the same stock as the old Marquis of Queensberry, and has
followed the ring more or less himself.

"I had the doubtful honour," says he, bringin' both eyes into range on
me, "of backing a certain Mr. Palmer, whom we sent over here several
years ago after a belt."

"He got more'n one belt," says I.

"Quite so," says he, almost crackin' a smile; "one belt too many, I
fancy."

Say, that was a real puncherino, eh? I ain't sure but what he got off
more along the same line, for some of them British kind is hard to know
unless you see 'em printed in the joke column. Anyway, we has quite a
chin, and before he left we got real chummy.

He had a right to be feelin' gay, though; for he'd come over to marry a
girl with more real estate deeds than you could pack in a trunk. Some
kin of Pinckney's, this Miss Cornerlot was; a sort of faded flower that
had hung too long on the stem. She'd run across Sir Hunter in London,
him bein' a widower that was willin' to forget, and they'd made a go of
it, nobody knew why. I judged that Pinckney was some relieved at the
prospects of placin' a misfit. He'd laid out for a little dinner at
the club, just to introduce Sir Hunter to his set and brace him up for
bein' inspected by the girl's aunt and other relations at some swell
doin's after.

I didn't pay much attention to their program at the time. It wa'n't
any of my funeral who Pinckney married off his leftover second cousins
to; and by even