d head-waiter, to whom Montague had once appealed to
seat him next to a friend. At the next meal, learning that the request
had been granted, he said to the old man, "I'm afraid you have shown me
partiality"; to which the reply came, "I always tries to show it as
much as I kin." Montague always thought of this whenever he recalled
his first encounter with "Billy" Price.

The young lady on the other side of him now remarked that Robbie was
ordering another "topsy-turvy lunch." He inquired what sort of a lunch
that was; she told him that Robbie called it a "digestion exercise."
That was the only remark that Miss de Millo addressed to him during the
meal (Miss Gladys de Mille, the banker's daughter, known as "Baby" to
her intimates). She was a stout and round-faced girl, who devoted
herself strictly to the business of lunching; and Montague noticed at
the end that she was breathing rather hard, and that her big round eyes
seemed bigger than ever.

Conversation was general about the table, but it was not easy
conversation to follow. It consisted mostly of what is known as
"joshing," and involved acquaintance with intimate details of
personalities and past events. Also, there was a great deal of slang
used, which kept a stranger's wits on the jump. However, Montague
concluded that all his deficiencies were made up for by his brother,
whose sallies were the cause of the loudest laughter. Just now he
seemed to the other more like the Oliver he had known of old--for
Montague had already noted a change in him. At home there had never
been any end to his gaiety and fun, and it was hard to get him to take
anything seriously; but now he kept all his jokes for company, and when
he was alone he was in deadly earnest. Apparently he was working hard
over his pleasures.

Montague could understand how this was possible. Some one, for
instance, had worked hard over the ordering of the lunch--to secure the
maximum of explosive effect. It began with ice-cream, moulded in fancy
shapes and then buried in white of egg and baked brown. Then there was
a turtle soup, thick and green and greasy; and then--horror of
horrors--a great steaming plum-pudding. It was served in a strange
phenomenon of a platter, with six long, silver legs; and the waiter set
it in front of Robbie Walling and lifted the cover with a sweeping
gesture--and then removed it and served it himself. Montague had about
made up his mind that this was the end, and begun to fill