"Smart!" he said coolly. "Demned smart, my dear boy! I wonder you don't get on better in life than you do, judging by your constant but fruitless appeals to my cash-box. But get down off your high horse, there's a good lad--you look like some damned play-acting fool up there--and give your old dad a paw; the left one, young ass, the left! Can't you see my right is all bandaged up with the most infernal fit of my old enemy I've had since last Christmas? All that Périgord-pie old Hare sent me. I'll baste his fat liver for him when he comes to-morrow. Lordy lord! Puts me in mind, Marmaduke, of the old days when your mother--she was the best of the three--used to say to you, a little lad, 'The right hand, my dearie. The right hand, my lovie.' And you never could remember. You were a bit of a dullard, but fine and strong and handsome. Not like that cursed skunk, Master Pitt--but there, don't let's mar the harmony of the occasion, eh, Jack?" He turned to a small man with somewhat of a weasel face who stood beside him listening devoutly, as were all the group. "You remember Jack Jardine, don't you, Duke?" "Slightly," smiled the young man, grasping the other's hand and shaking it violently. "One of the few pleasant reminiscences, sir, I have of Drummuir Castle." He echoed his father's reckless disregard of other folks' feelings with superb indifference and gave back the old man's critical look coolly. The latter laughed. "Just what I was at his age--eh, what? Lordy lord, Jack, how we smashed all the lamp-posts in Dodston and told the provost to send the policeman with the bill! Ha, ha! and old cat Carnegie sitting in the hearse with her skirts up to her knees going to the Hunt ball when we'd commandeered every other conveyance in the town. Ha, ha! how the pretty little lassies showed their sandalled ankles, bless 'em, trying to keep their dresses clear of coffins. But I am forgetting. Sandalled ankles reminds me--eh, Fantine? Come here, my dear. I must present you to my second son, Captain--he wants to be a major, I'm told--Marmaduke Muir. Marmaduke, make your due respects to Mdlle. Fantine Le Grand, your future stepmother!" The dainty little figure, which till then had been standing with one tiny, much-beringed hand resting on the back of the bath-chair, its inquisitive, almost colourless grey eyes taking in the minutest detail of the scene, took a step forward and prepared to make a full-flounced curtsey. But Marmaduke was too quick, too prompt in his perceptions. He grasped the situation and the little lady in a second. The general pinkness of complexion and furbelows, the jimpness of the long trim waist, the uncompromising bands of black velvet, the showers of fair ringlets. His hat was off with a flourish, he also took a step forward to meet the curtsey, but, bending with a "grand air" that did him infinite credit, gave the powdered face a resounding kiss.