eye--like a cobra's.

"The refreshments was handed round peaceful enough, with the ladies
pressing sardine sandwiches and chocolate cake and cups of coffee on to
Wilfred and asking him interesting questions about his adventurous life
in the open. And the plans was all made for his class in poetry to be
held at Henrietta's house, where the lady subscribers for a few weeks
could come into contact with the higher realities of life, at eight
dollars for the course, and Wilfred was beginning to cheer up again,
though still subject to dismay when one of the husbands would glare in
at him from the hall, and especially when Ben Sutton would look in with
his bulging and expressive eyes and kind of bark at him.

"Then Ben Sutton come and stood in the doorway till he caught Wilfred's
eye and beckoned to him. Wilfred pretended not to notice the first time,
but Ben beckoned a little harder, so Wilfred excused himself to the six
or eight ladies and went out. It seemed to me he first looked quick
round him to make sure there wasn't any other way out. I was standing in
the hall when Ben led him tenderly into the grillroom with two fingers.

"'Here is our well-known poet and _bon vivant_,' says Ben to Alonzo, who
had followed 'em in. So Alonzo bristles up to Wilfred and glares at him
and says: 'All joking aside, is that one of my new shirts you're wearing
or is it not?'

"Wilfred gasped a couple times and says: 'Why, as to that, you see, the
madam insisted--'

"Alonzo shut him off. 'How dare you drag a lady's name into a barroom
brawl?' says he.

"'Don't shoot in here,' says Ben. 'You'd scare the ladies.'

"Wilfred went pasty, indeed, thinking his host was going to gun him.

"'Oh, very well, I won't then,' says Alonzo. 'I guess I can be a
gentleman when necessary. But all joking aside, I want to ask him this:
Does he consider poetry to be an accomplishment or a vice?'

"'I was going to put something like that to him myself, only I couldn't
think of it,' says Doc Martingale, edging up and looking quite
restrained and nervous in the arms. I was afraid of the doc. I was
afraid he was going to blemish Wilfred a couple of times right there.

"'An accomplishment or a vice? Answer yes or no!' orders the judge in a
hard voice.

"The poet looks round at 'em and attempts to laugh merrily, but he only
does it from the teeth out.

"'Laugh on, my proud beauty!' says Ben Button. Then he turns to the
bunch. 'What we really ought to do,'