Morelli was a great puzzle. He seemed changed since they had sat down at the table. He seemed, for one thing, considerably younger. Outside the house he had been middle-aged; now the lines in his forehead seemed to disappear, the wrinkles under his eyes were no longer there. He laughed continually. It was, in fact, becoming very rapidly a merry meal. The chops had vanished and there was cheese and fruit. They were all rather excited, and a wave of what Maradick was inclined to call “spirited childishness” swept over the party. He himself and Miss Minns were most decidedly out of it. It was significant of the change that Morelli now paid much more attention to Tony. The three of them burst into roars of laughter about nothing; Tony imitated various animals, the drawing of a cork, and a motor-omnibus running into a policeman, with enormous success. Miss Minns made no attempt to join in the merriment; but sat in the shadow gravely silent. Maradick tried and was for a time a miserable failure, but afterwards he too was influenced. Morelli told a story that seemed to him extraordinarily funny. It was about an old bachelor who always lived alone, and some one climbed up a chimney and stuck there. He could not afterwards remember the point of the story, but he knew that it seemed delightfully amusing to him at the time. He began to laugh and then lost all control of himself; he laughed and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. He stopped for a moment and then started again; he grew red in the face and purple—he took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “Oh, dear!” he said, gasping, “that’s a funny story. I don’t know when I’ve laughed like that before. It’s awfully funny.” He still shook at the thought of it. It was a very gay meal indeed. “You have been at the University, I suppose, Mr. Gale?” said Morelli. “Yes, Oxford,” said Tony. “But please don’t call me Mr.; nobody calls me Mr., you know. You have to have a house, a wife and a profession if you’re Mr. anybody, and I haven’t got anything—nothing whatever.” “Oh, I wonder,” said Janet, “if you’d mind opening the door for me. We’ll clear the table and get it out of the way. Saturday is Lucy’s night out, so I’m going to do it.” “Oh, let me help,” said Tony, jumping up and nearly knocking the table over in his eagerness. “I’m awfully good at washing things up.” “You won’t have to wash anything up,” she answered. “We’ll leave that for Lucy when she comes back; but if you wouldn’t mind helping me to carry the plates and things into the other room I’d be very grateful.”