"This has not been a fair fight," declared Holworthy. "I can see through this man Stoughton, now, and understand it all. He has prepared all this harangue, and is trying to pass it off here as impromptu. Now, I am going to give him away. I was with him the other evening at a dinner. There was a girl there who had been abroad for the first time. She had spent the last season in London, for the expenses of which her governor probably had to do double work at home. She had quite naturally, fallen completely in love with all those great big, splendid-looking chaps who float about London in long coats all day during the season. A handsome leisure class. Some of the biggest and best dressed of them, by-the-way, are quite apt to be her own humdrum countrymen on a vacation, but she hadn't found that out yet, and it has nothing to do with the present discussion, anyway. I heard her remark to Dick during dinner that Englishmen were so much better looking and more agreeable than American men. That is an undeniable fact, in daily life, but Dick was fool enough to get a little mad over the observation. He couldn't think of any brilliant repartee at the time, but came home and slept over it. Next time he meets that girl, or one like her, he will be loaded for bear, but he wants to rehearse a little, first, so he has brought his mediæval metaphor here to try it on the dog. He knew that our hair-trigger poet, with a little joggling, would be morally certain to shoot off something about love and lances; that was just the opening he wanted. Keep it for your next dinner-party, Dick. It doesn't mean anything but it may make you feel clever and entertaining. I hold that Brother Gray has thrown you and your Dulcinea down hard." "It is perfectly true to life, anyway," said Dick, with a conscious grin; "but you are wrong in accusing me of worrying about it. I don't mind the prospect in the least, as I said before, and am only warning you snobs who think you are something pretty nice. You can't carry your poetry out of college. Your 'graces of life' as you call 'em, either mental or physical, won't raise your salary in an office, and your hard work in the office won't help you to figure in a ballroom. If you get to the top before you are thirty, Dulcinea may smile on you; but you are not likely to do anything of the kind. You will probably spoil all your other chances with her in the attempt." "Listen to our man of the world, you fellows," said Burleigh. "Jack Rattleton, stop playing with that ugly pup and improve your advantages. Uncle Richard, here, aged two and twenty, has upon half a dozen occasions made the exertion of going to a party in Boston, where he has talked foot-ball with some _débutante_ and been floored on Esoteric Buddhism by an elderly lady who had it. He has spent all the rest of his time smoking a villanous pipe in Cambridge. He is now giving us, from his wealth of experience, a few opinions and straight tips on the nature of woman."