at. I won't be made a guy. I won't--"

"Come, come," said Beaumont feverishly. "Let me introduce you. This is
Mr Justice Grant--that is, Mr Grant. Basil, I am sure you have heard of
Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh."

"Who has not?" asked Grant, and bowed to the worthy old baronet, eyeing
him with some curiosity. He was hot and heavy in his momentary anger,
but even that could not conceal the noble though opulent outline of his
face and body, the florid white hair, the Roman nose, the body stalwart
though corpulent, the chin aristocratic though double. He was a
magnificent courtly gentleman; so much of a gentleman that he could show
an unquestionable weakness of anger without altogether losing dignity;
so much of a gentleman that even his faux pas were well-bred.

"I am distressed beyond expression, Beaumont," he said gruffly, "to fail
in respect to these gentlemen, and even more especially to fail in it in
your house. But it is not you or they that are in any way concerned, but
that flashy half-caste jackanapes--"

At this moment a young man with a twist of red moustache and a sombre
air came out of the inner room. He also did not seem to be greatly
enjoying the intellectual banquet within.

"I think you remember my friend and secretary, Mr Drummond," said
Lord Beaumont, turning to Grant, "even if you only remember him as a
schoolboy."

"Perfectly," said the other. Mr Drummond shook hands pleasantly and
respectfully, but the cloud was still on his brow. Turning to Sir Walter
Cholmondeliegh, he said:

"I was sent by Lady Beaumont to express her hope that you were not going
yet, Sir Walter. She says she has scarcely seen anything of you."

The old gentleman, still red in the face, had a temporary internal
struggle; then his good manners triumphed, and with a gesture of
obeisance and a vague utterance of, "If Lady Beaumont... a lady, of
course," he followed the young man back into the salon. He had scarcely
been deposited there half a minute before another peal of laughter told
that he had (in all probability) been scored off again.

"Of course, I can excuse dear old Cholmondeliegh," said Beaumont, as he
helped us off with our coats. "He has not the modern mind."

"What is the modern mind?" asked Grant.

"Oh, it's enlightened, you know, and progressive--and faces the facts
of life seriously." At this moment another roar of laughter came from
within.

"I only ask," said Basil, "because of the last two friends of you