onic smile. "Oh, of
course, if you're eludin' to the young gentleman's appetite--"

But this was insufferable, it was wounding Mrs. Downey in the
tenderest spot of all. The rose of her face became a peony.

"I'm doing no such thing. If any gentleman wishes to pay me a
compliment--" her gay smile took for granted that no gentleman could
be so barbarous as not to feel that wish--"let him show an appetite.
As for the ladies, I wish they had an appetite to show. Mr. Partridge,
let me give you a little more canary pudding. It's as light as light.
No? Oh--come, Mr. Partridge."

Mr. Partridge's gesture of refusal was so vast, so expressive, that it
amounted to a solemn personal revelation which implied, not so much
that Mr. Partridge rejected canary pudding as that he renounced
pleasure, of which canary pudding was but the symbol and the sign.

"Mr. Spinks then? He'll let me give him another slice, _I_ know."

"You bet. Tell you wot it is, Mrs. Downey, the canary that pudding was
made of, must have been an uncommonly fine bird."

There was a swift step on the pavement, the determined click of a
latch-key, and the clang of a closing door.

"Why, here _is_ Mr. Rickman," said Mrs. Downey, betraying the
preoccupation of her soul.

Rickman's entrance produced a certain vibration down both sides of the
table, a movement unanimous, yet discordant, as if the nerves of this
social body that was "Mrs. Downey's" were being played upon every way
at once. Each boarder seemed to be preparing for an experience that,
whether agreeable or otherwise, would be disturbing to the last
degree. The birds of passage raised their heads with a faint flutter.
Miss Walker contemplated a chromo-lithograph with a dreamy air. Mr.
Soper strove vainly to fix himself in an attitude of dignified
detachment.

The boarding-house was about to suffer the tremendous invasion of a
foreign element. For a moment it was united.

Mrs. Downey's face revealed a grave anxiety. She was evidently asking
herself: "Was he, or was he not, in his vein?"

A glance at the object of his adoration decided the question for Mr.
Spinks. Rickman was, thank goodness, _not_ in his vein, in which state
he was incomprehensible to anybody but Miss Roots. He was in that
comparatively commonplace condition which rendered him accessible to
Mr. Spinks.

"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce my friend, the lyte Mr.
Ryzors. Jemima, show the deceased gentleman to his chair. Mis