e.

And to-night Mr. Rickman was later than ever.

"I'm really beginning to be afraid," said Mrs. Downey, "that he can't
be coming."

The middle-aged gentleman, Mr. Soper, was heard muttering something to
the effect that he thought they could bear up if he didn't come.
Whereupon Mrs. Downey begged Mr. Soper's pardon in a manner which was
a challenge to him to repeat his last remark. Therefore he repeated
it.

"I say, I 'ope we can manage to bear up."

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Soper." (This from Mr. Spinks who adored
Rickman.)

"Well, really, I can't think how it is you and he don't seem to hit it
off together. A young fellow that can make himself so pleasant when he
likes."

"Ah-h! When he likes. And when he doesn't like? When he comes into the
room like a young lord with his head in the air, and plumps himself
down straight in front of you, and looks at you as if you were a
sorter ea'wig or a centerpede? Call that pleasant?"

Mr. Spinks chuckled behind his table napkin. "He means a centre piece.
Wouldn't he make a handsome one!"

Mr. Soper combined a certain stateliness of carriage with a restless
insignificance of feature.

"We all know," said Mrs. Downey, "that Mr. Rickman is a very reserved
gentleman. He has his own thoughts."

"Thoughts? I've got my thoughts. But they don't make me disagreeable
to everybody."

Mr. Spinks craned forward as far as the height of his collar permitted
him. "I wouldn't be too cock-sure if I were you, Mr. Soper."

The young end of the table heaved and quivered with primeval mirth.
Even Flossie Walker was moved to a faint smile. For Mr. Soper, though
outwardly taciturn and morose, was possessed inwardly by a perfect
fury of sociability, an immortal and insatiable craving to converse.
It was an instinct which, if gratified, would have undermined the
whole fabric of the Dinner, being essentially egoistic, destructive
and malign. Mr. Soper resented the rapidity with which Rickman had
been accepted by the boarding-house; he himself, after two years'
residence, only maintaining a precarious popularity by little
offerings of bon-bons to the ladies. Hence the bitterness of his
present mood.

"There are thoughts _and_ thoughts," said Mrs. Downey severely, for
the commercial gentleman had touched her in a very sensitive place.
"And when Mr. Rickman is in wot I call 'is vein, there's nobody like
him for making a dinner go off."

Here Mr. Soper achieved a sardonic, a really sard