"Yes; I know something about it," he replied; "but I don't see that I'm called upon to reveal poor Dick's domestic secrets to uninterested parties. You don't hold any of his paper, I suppose? No--you're too prudent for that. Not quite prudent enough, though. I wouldn't say too much about St. John's Wood, if I were you. You've heard the proverb about 'glass houses?' I believe there's a conservatory attached to that very nice villa in Mastic Road, to which you have the _entrée_ at all hours. Have you got the latch-key in your pocket?" If Richard Brabazon valued himself on one possession more than another, it was his immaculate respectability: in fact, an ostentatious piety was part of his stock-in-trade. For once, he was fairly disconcerted. His face grew white, and actually convulsed with rage and fear as he stammered out, quite forgetting his careful elocution-- "I don't pretend to understand you; but I see you wish to insult me." "Wrong again, and twice over," the other answered, coolly. "I never insulted anybody since I was born. And you will understand me perfectly, if you will take the trouble to remember a very warm midnight last spring, when the cabman could not give you change for a sovereign and you had to send him out his fare. You were in such a hurry to go in, that you never saw the humblest of your servants, about fifteen yards off, lighting his cigar. I don't wonder at your impetuosity. I got a good look at the _soubrette_ when she came out with the change; and, if the mistress is as pretty as the maid, your taste is unimpeachable--whatever your morals may be." The great drops gathered on Brabazon's forehead as he sat glaring speechlessly at his tormentor, who at that moment appeared intent on the selection of some olives, all the while humming audibly to himself, "The Young May Moon." "It is an atrocious calumny," he gasped out, "or a horrible mistake. I wish to believe it is the last." "You wish _us_ to believe, you mean," the other retorted. "But I won't 'accept the composition,' (that's the correct expression, isn't it?) There was no mistake about it. I saw you that night, just as plainly as I did the morning before, going into Exeter Hall to talk about converting the Pongo Islanders--only you were in your brougham _then_. Quite right too. Never take your own carriage out on the war-trail: it only makes scandal, and costs you a night-horse. I always tried to beat so much economy into poor Dick Pulteney. If he would have listened to me, he might have lasted a month or two longer. I assure you I watched the whole thing with great interest. One doesn't see a _financier en bonne fortune_ every day; and the habits of all animals are worth observing at certain seasons. A Frenchman wrote such a pretty treatise the other day about the 'Loves of the Moles!'"