heard what he really said, as I did, you would have
been either very much disgusted with him or very much amused by him,
according to your way of looking at things. He began, fairly enough,
with a modest explanation of his absurd Christian name, which at once
checked the merriment of the audience. But as he went on the mad side
of him showed itself. He mixed up sense and nonsense in the strangest
confusion; he was called to order over and over again; he was even
threatened with fine and imprisonment for contempt of Court. In short,
he was just like himself--a mixture of the strangest and the most
opposite qualities; at one time perfectly clear and reasonable, as
you said just now; at another breaking out into rhapsodies of the most
outrageous kind, like a man in a state of delirium. A more entirely
unfit person to advise anybody, I tell you again, never lived. You don't
expect Me to introduce you to him, I hope?"

"I did think of such a thing," I answered. "But after what you have
said, dear Mrs. Macallan, I give up the idea, of course. It is not
a great sacrifice--it only obliges me to wait a week for Major
Fitz-David's dinner-party. He has promised to ask Miserrimus Dexter to
meet me."

"There is the Major all over!" cried the old lady. "If you pin your
faith on that man, I pity you. He is as slippery as an eel. I suppose
you asked him to introduce you to Dexter?"

"Yes."

"Exactly! Dexter despises him, my dear. He knows as well as I do that
Dexter won't go to his dinner. And he takes that roundabout way of
keeping you apart, instead of saying No to you plainly, like an honest
man."

This was bad news. But I was, as usual, too obstinate to own myself
defeated.

"If the worst comes to the worst," I said, "I can but write to Mr.
Dexter, and beg him to grant me an interview."

"And go to him by yourself, if he does grant it?" inquired Mrs.
Macallan.

"Certainly. By myself."

"You really mean it?"

"I do, indeed."

"I won't allow you to go by yourself."

"May I venture to ask, ma'am how you propose to prevent me?"

"By going with you, to be sure, you obstinate hussy! Yes, yes--I can be
as headstrong as you are when I like. Mind! I don't want to know what
your plans are. I don't want to be mixed up with your plans. My son is
resigned to the Scotch Verdict. I am resigned to the Scotch Verdict.
It is you who won't let matters rest as they are. You are a vain and
foolhardy young person. But, somehow, I hav