Dale helped himself to whisky and soda water, without replying. "I've been having a talk with Nellie," pursued Philip. "What's wrong with Nellie?" "She's got some notion in her head that she and her mother ought to go." Dale was lighting a cigar. "Of course I told her it was all nonsense, and that you meant them to stay as long as they liked. She's got some maggot in her head about propriety--all nonsense, when her mother's here." "I don't want them to go, if they like staying," said Dale. "Well, we should be slow without Nellie, shouldn't we? You must blow her up for thinking of it. She only wants to be persuaded." "She can do as she likes." "You don't seem very enthusiastic about it, one way or the other." "Well, my dear Phil, I can't be expected to cry at the idea of little Nellie Fane leaving us." "Yet you made rather a point of her coming--but that was two months ago." "Really, you might leave Nellie and me to settle it." "What I told her was right, I suppose?" "Well, you don't suppose I wanted you to tell her to pack up?" "I don't know what you want, old man," said Philip; "and I doubt if you do." CHAPTER X. =A Prejudiced Verdict.= It has been contumeliously said by insolent Englishmen--a part of our population which may sometimes seem to foreign eyes as large as the whole--that you might put any other of the world's capitals, say Paris or New York, down in London, and your cabman would not be able to find it. However this may be,--and there is no need in this place either for assertions or admissions,--it is certain that you might unload a wagonful of talents in Piccadilly, and they would speedily be absorbed and leave little obvious trace of the new ingredient. Hence the advantage, for a man who does not dislike the _digito monstrari et dicier_ "_hic est_," of dwelling in small places, and hence, a cynic might suggest, the craving for quieter quarters displayed by some of our less conspicuous celebrities. It is better, says a certain authority, to reign in hell than serve in heaven; and a man may grow weary of walking unrecognized down the Strand, when he has only, to be the beheld of all beholders, to take up his residence in--perhaps it will be more prudent to say Market Denborough, and not point the finger of printed scorn at any better known resort.