"Curry, sir--my lord," the waitress answered, moving the dish towards him. "Curried goose, my lord." He gave her a suspicious glance, and then pushed the dish away. There seemed too much of the personal and anticipatory element in the pungent dainty. "Oh, it's not very hot," she protested, with the ready word for the credit of the cuisine. "Nothing like what you may find it elsewhere." These jokes, it seemed to the guest, if jokes they were, grew monotonous, while their bad taste was undeniable. As a cockney sybarite in a cheap way, he liked to have a good-looking waitress to chatter to while dining, as he liked to chaff a barmaid over a "small scotch and polly", or a gin and ginger beer; but this was not the sort of thing the occasion seemed to call for. Accordingly he proceeded to eat and drink in silence. After all, the one solid tangible fact--presumably the last--that the world held for him, was the first-class dinner he was recklessly enjoying. Piqued by her failure to maintain the interest she had so auspiciously begun to excite in the distinguished guest, Miss Popkiss turned in a huff to the window, and affected a melancholy interest in the heavy shower which had come on, to be roused suddenly from her air of indifference to things in general and the preoccupied gourmandizer in particular by catching sight of the adventurous Mr. Thomas Sparrow sheltering under a lean-to a few feet from the window. Evidently on the watch, he came quickly to the window, heedless of the downpour. Miss Popkiss, with a guilty conscience, received him graciously; put her finger to her lip and pointed with an air of importance to the still voracious Peckover. Sparrow looked, and his damp face clouded with jealous doubt. "Lord Quorn," whispered Miss Popkiss behind her hand. Even if Mr. Sparrow had seen that affectionate passage he could scarcely expect his sweetheart to withhold an occasional kiss from a real, if newly discovered, peer of the realm. Whatever attraction a noble _bon-vivant_ might have had for Mr. Sparrow at any other time, he was just then in too close proximity to a gutter-spout and a tempting pair of lips to devote more than a critical glance and a nod of surprised comprehension to the person indicated. Then, eager to catch the fleeting opportunity, he put forth a moist hand, pulled Miss Popkiss a thought nearer to him, and so steadying her for the operation and obviating a possible retreat, he kissed her.