“For which reason I never lose an opportunity of involving him in one,” replied Bracy, rubbing his hands with mischievous glee. “He can’t bear walking with me, for I always get him into some scrape or other, and injure his dignity irreparably for the time being. Why, the last severe frost we had I met him in Pall Mall, drew him on to talk of architecture, pointed out to him a mistake which didn’t exist in the front of one of the club-houses, and while he was looking up at it beguiled him on to a slide and upset him, quite inadvertently, into an itinerant orange basket, just as Lady B--------, with whom he has a bowing acquaintance, was passing in her carriage. Look at him now, prancing along as if all Regent Street belonged to him! Walk a little faster, and we shall overtake him; and, by the way, lend me that wonderful cotton umbrella of yours; I’ll make him carry it right down to the Home Office. You are bound for Westminster, are you not?” “What made you guess that?” asked Frere, handing him the umbrella. “Because there’s a meeting at the Palaeontological to-day at three, and I know you’re one of their great guns,” was the reply. “It’s my belief that you know everything about everybody,” returned Frere, laughing. “And you know everything about every-_thing_” rejoined Bracy, “so between us we form an epitome of human knowledge. I say, De Grandeville,” he continued, as they overtook that gentleman, “you are a treacherous ally, to desert your comrade in the moment of danger. That ferocious old woman abused me within an inch of my life, and wanted to give me in charge to a policeman.” “Knowing you have an equal aptitude for getting into and out of scrapes of that nature,” returned De Grandeville, “I--ar--considered you fully equal to the situation--and--ar--having no taste for bandying slang with vituperative plebeian females, I left you to fight your own battles. Was I not justified in doing so, Mr. Frere?” “Well, Bracy being the aggressor, I suppose you were,” was the answer; “but as I was the innocent first cause of the scrimmage I felt bound to remain, and dragged Bracy away by main force, just in time, as I imagine, to save him from the nails of the insulted matron.” “By Jove! what a nuisance. I do believe I’ve broken my trouser strap,” exclaimed Bracy, stopping and elevating his boot on a doorstep. “Hold this one moment while I try to repair damages, there’s a good fellow,” he continued, thrusting the umbrella into De Grande-ville’s unwilling hand; “I’ll be with you again directly.” The damages must have been serious, judging by the length of time they took to remedy; for ere Bracy rejoined them, Frere and De Grandeville had proceeded half the length of Regent Street, the latter carrying the umbrella--which he regarded from time to time with looks of the most intense disgust--so as to keep it as much out of sight as possible, even secreting it behind him whenever he perceived a fashionably dressed man or woman approaching.