Well, God help anybody Dearman might happen to hear on the subject! Happily Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman heard nothing, for he was a quiet, slow, jolly, red-haired man, and the wrath of a slow, quiet, red-haired man, once roused, is apt to be a rather dangerous thing. Also Mr. Dearman was singularly elephantine in the blundering crushing directness of his methods, and his idea of enough might well seem more than a feast to some. And Mr. Dearman suffered Augustus gladly, usually finding him present at tea, frequently at dinner, and invariably in attendance at dances and functions. Augustus was happy and Good--for Augustus. He dallied, he adored, he basked. For a time he felt how much better, finer, more enjoyable, more beautiful, was this life of innocent communion with a pure soul--pure, if just a little insipid, after the real spankers he had hitherto affected. He was being saved from himself, reformed, helped, and all the rest of it. And when privileged to bring her pen, her fan, her book, her cushion, he always kissed the object with an appearance of wishing to be unseen in the act. It was a splendid change from the Lurid Life and the mean adventure. Piquant. Unstable as water he could not excel nor endure, however, even in dalliance; nor persevere even when adopted as the _fidus Achates_ of a good and beautiful woman--the poor little weather-cock. He was essentially weak, and weakness is worse than wickedness. There is hope for the strong bad man. He may become a strong good one. Your weak man can never be that. There came a lady to the Great Eastern Hotel where Augustus lived. Her husband's name, curiously enough, was Harris, and wags referred to him as _the_ Mr. Harris, because he had never been seen--and like Betsey Prig, they "didn't believe there was no sich person". And beyond doubt she was a spanker. Augustus would sit and eye her at meals--and his face would grow a little less attractive. He would think of her while he took tea with Mrs. and Mr. Dearman, assuring himself that she was certainly a stepper, a stunner, and, very probably,--thrilling thought--a wrong 'un. Without the very slightest difficulty he obtained an introduction and, shortly afterwards, decided that he was a man of the world, a Decadent, a wise Hedonist who took the sweets of every day and hoped for more to-morrow.