"Oh! no, seh, I knowed you wouldn't have. But bein' the talk' o' the town that you an' this young gen'leman"--dipping low to Fair--"is projeckin' said depopulation I has cawdially engross ow meaju' in writin' faw yo' conjint an' confidential consideration. Yass, seh, aw in default whereof then to compote it in like manneh to the nex' mos' interested." "And, pray, who is the next most interested in my private property?" "Why, Majo' Gyarnit, I reck'n--an' Mr. Ravenel, seein' he's the Djuke o' Suez--p-he!" March let his hand accept a soiled document, saying, "Well, he's not Duke of me. Just leave me this. I'll either mail it to you or see you again. Good-by." The title of the document as indorsed on it was: "The Suez and Three Counties Transportation, Immigration, Education, Navigation, and Construction Co." XXXIV. DAPHNE AND DINWIDDIE: A PASTEL IN PROSE "Professor" Pettigrew had always been coldly indifferent to many things commonly counted chief matters of life. One of these was religion; another was woman. His punctuality at church at the head of Rosemont's cadets was so obviously perfunctory as to be without a stain of hypocrisy. Yet he never vaunted his scepticism, but only let it exhale from him in interrogative insinuations that the premises and maxims of religion were refuted by the outcome of the war. To woman his heart was as hard, cold, and polished as celluloid. Only when pressed did he admit that he regarded her as an insipid necessity. One has to have a female parent in order to get into this world--no gentleman admitted without a lady; and when one goes out of it again, it is good to leave children so as to keep the great unwashed from getting one's property. Property!--humph! he or his father, at least--he became silent. He often saw Mrs. March in church, yet kept his heart. But one night a stereoptican lecture was given in Suez. In Mrs. March's opinion such things, unlike the deadly theatre, were harmful only when carried to excess. To keep John from carrying this one to excess--that is, from going to it with anybody else--she went with him, and they "happened"--I suppose an agnostic would say--to sit next to Dinwiddie Pettigrew. John being in a silent mood Daphne and Dinwiddie found time for much conversation. The hour fixed for the lecture was half-past seven. Promptly about half-past eight the audience began to arrive. At a quarter of nine it was growing numerous. "Oh! no," said General Halliday to the lecturer, "don't you fret about them going home; they'll stay like the yellow fever"--and punctually somewhere about nine "The Great Love Stories of History" began to be told, and luminously pictured on a white cotton full moon.