, the
_limit_. Nevertheless, he would persevere, and try a course of lessons
from the Dook.

They began to discuss terms, and Nick did not bargain. Mr. Jerrold was to
have an advance payment of twenty-five dollars, on account of fifty, for
ten "lessons"; and he was to come to Nick's house every evening to
"supper" at half-past seven, remaining until half-past nine. Hilliard was
to be watched through the meal and corrected if he did anything wrong with
his knife and fork, or his bread; and they were to have conversations and
discussions covering various imagined emergencies.

Details were arranged, much to the satisfaction of Montagu Jerrold, whose
real name was Herbert Higgins, and who had been a house decorator,
employed--and discharged--by a small London firm. Never had he been inside
an Oxford college: never had he seen the King--except on a post card. He
returned joyously to his hotel, where, as Mr. Green was lying in wait, he
had to part with most of his advance. And Nick tramped home torn in mind,
fearing instinctively that he was about to jump from the frying-pan of
ignorance into a fire of vulgarity at which Angela would shudder.

Every night for a week the Dook appeared promptly in time for Nick's
substantial supper, which, by the way, he advised his host to transform
into dinner. "You simply can't have 'supper' at half-past seven, my deah
fellow. It isn't _done!_ Dinner should be at eight, at earliest. Our
royalties prefer it at nine. If you have supper it is after the theatre or
opera, don't you know." But when Nick stolidly refused to be such an
"affected donkey" as to call his evening meal by another name to make it
sweeter, Mr. Jerrold did not scorn the meal because it lacked refinement.

On the seventh night, however, Hilliard gave his noble instructor notice.

"I'm real sorry," he remarked pleasantly, "but I can't help it. I'd rather
go on as I am, and pin myself to a prickly pear, than shine in society by
doing any of these monkey tricks you've been tryin' to put me on to. You
say they're 'the thing' and the newest dope and all that, and maybe
they're real nice for your sort, but I tell you they're not for mine! It
seems to me you know a wonderful lot of fool things that ain't so, and I
can't yoke up with 'em. What's more, I don't mean to. And now I see
they're the only cards you've got in your hand I don't want any more dealt
out to me--Hook up my little finger when I come to grips with a
coffee-cu