_Spurrell._ I'm in evening dress, Emma, such as it is (not that I've any right to find fault with it); but I'm in evening dress (_with dignity_) because I've been included in the dinner party here. _Phillipson._ You must have been getting on since _I_ knew you. Then you were studying to be a horse-doctor. _Spurrell._ I _have_ got on. I am now a qualified M.R.C.V.S. _Phillipson._ And does that qualify you to dine with bishops and countesses and baronets and the gentry, like one of themselves? _Spurrell._ I don't say it does, in itself. It was my Andromeda that did the trick, Emma. _Phillipson._ Andromeda? They were talking of that downstairs. What made you take to scribbling, James? _Spurrell._ Scribbling? how do you mean? My handwriting's easy enough to read, as you ought to know very well. _Phillipson._ You can't expect me to remember what your writing's like; it's so long since I've seen it! _Spurrell._ Come, I like that! When I wrote twice to say I was sorry we'd fallen out; and never got a word back! _Phillipson._ If you'd written to the addresses I gave you abroad---- _Spurrell._ Then you _did_ write; but none of the letters reached me. I never even knew you'd _gone_ abroad. I wrote to the old place. And so did you, I suppose, not knowing I'd moved my lodgings too, so naturally---- But what does it all matter, so long as we've met and it's all right between us? Oh, my dear girl, if you only knew how I worried myself, thinking you were---- Well, all that's over now, isn't it? [_He attempts to embrace her._ _Phillipson_ (_repulsing him_). Not quite so fast, James. Before I say whether we're to be as we were or not, I want to know a little more about you. You wouldn't be here like this if you hadn't done _something_ to distinguish yourself. _Spurrell._ Well, I don't say I mayn't have got a certain amount of what they call "kudosh," owing to Andromeda. But what difference does that make? _Phillipson._ Tell me, James, is it _you_ that's been writing a pink book all over silver cutlets? _Spurrell._ Me? Write a book--about cutlets--or anything else! Emma, you don't suppose I've quite come down to that! Andromeda's the name of my bull-dog. I took first prize with her; there were portraits of both of us in one of the papers. And the people here were very much taken with the dog, and--and so they asked me to dine with them. That's how it was. _Phillipson._ I should have thought, if they asked one of you to dine, it ought to have been the bull-dog. _Spurrell._ Now what's the good of saying extravagant things of that sort? Not that old Drummy couldn't be trusted to behave anywhere! _Phillipson._ Better than her master, I dare say. _I_ heard of your goings on with some Lady Rhoda or other! _Spurrell._ Oh, the girl I sat next to at dinner? Nice chatty sort of girl; seems fond of quadrupeds---- _Phillipson._ Especially two-legged ones! You see, I've been told all about it!