"When we are young we are careless and happy, But when we get old we are hairless and cappy." One flash of those awful eyes told him the dowager had made an application of his silly and thoughtless words. Relieved from his partner, he stole off to the dressing-room to think. He found Warrener and Wylde Payne there, and presently he began to tell "what a confounded mess he had made of it down stairs." Mason had been charged by the angry woman with the disagreeable duty of ordering Bob Nettles to leave the house. Selfish, but good-natured, Mason by no means liked the task, and on a favorable opportunity would have softened it probably into a warning. But the temptation to vapor a little when he found his rival down was too much for him. "I call it confounded shabby," said he--"a lady of Aunt Fanny's age and character!" "You are a relation," said Bob anxiously and not at all offended. "I wish you'd just say to Mrs. Brown I meant nothing. It was just chaff and nonsense, and I never meant anything." "Chaff, indeed!" said Mason, egged on by Payne's and Warrener's open grins. "I think it confounded blackguardly, and you ought to be kicked out," ruffling like a cock-turkey with trailed wings. "Go for him, Lind!" laughed Payne, "but remember the four Dutchmen and be merciful." Thus adjured, Mason made a gesture with his open palm. Bob let out two little fists, hard as bats, one of which caught Mason in the eye, the other on the nose, and then went whirling among the tipping chairs and tables, rolling his fists over each other, as if grinding up for another blow, as he cried, "Come on, ye dog-goned gas-bag! I'll knock the socks off'n ye." Wrath carried little Bob back to the playground. It was superbly ridiculous, but Aunt Fanny's champion was clearly discomfited; his fine lawn front was dabbled with blood, and a discoloration promised a southerly wind and a cloudy eye by morning. He withdrew, followed by Payne, who snuffed frolic mischief in the wind. "This is not the last of it," said Mason, as he went out, in a threatening tone. "Of course not," said Payne. "A blow has passed. But you have a soft thing of it: I don't think the other cocktail will fight. But didn't he hit out, though?" and he burst into shouts of laughter at the late scene. Mason could not join in it very heartily: his comb was cut terribly. He had got on amazingly as Hector with the nodding plume to his little cousin that evening; but Hector with his eye blacked and his nose bloodied! He heard Bob crow, as he would have crowed had the victory been his, and he felt there must be something done. Bob would have withdrawn too, but Warrener said, "No: you said all that was sufficient. Don't let that old griffin think you have been hectored off the place."