“I quite feel that about him. Apart from liking to show off, and not being able to afford to do it, old Amherst is no fool. But whilst I know that he knows what he’s up to, I can’t say that I always know what he knows about knowing— See what I mean, don’t you? Is this him, in the Russian-bear costume?” Mr. Amherst, in a brand-new fur-lined overcoat, was scarcely the man to deprive the public of a full view of it, and he resisted the page-boy’s attempt to take possession at the door. Diners at other tables glanced up. Two matronly ladies at the corner said something in a foreign language and suspended the rule which orders that one should not laugh at one’s own jokes. Men gave their closer attention to the trim young figure in a small sealskin cap and warm costume who followed so soon as Mr. Amherst’s whirling arms made it safe to do so. “Gentlemen,” he said, advancing to the long table, with the air of making a speech, “I have to apologise for being somewhat late on the Rialto, so to speak, but— You’ve met my daughter. Waiter, another chair!” They rose, and she nodded pleasantly, giving to one her muff, another her cloak, a third her gloves. “I particularly wanted her to come along, and it occupied some little time to induce her to obey my request. She’s all I’ve got now, you see.” He sat down heavily at the top of the table. “Now then, my lad,” to the attendant, in a pained manner, “we all seem to be waiting, except you. How much longer before the soup comes?” Miss Amherst, at the other end of the table, explained to neighbours that her father’s account was inexact in certain particulars. What had really happened was that she found he intended her to stop at the hotel and dine alone. “He generally gets his own way,” remarked one. “Not if it happens to differ from mine,” she said. “Did he tell you, by any chance,” lowering voices, and speaking confidentially, “what the motive was for asking us all here this evening?” “I understood it was that you should eat a dinner.” They shook their heads to convey that the information was not complete, and followed her lead in the management of the whitebait. Near Mr. Amherst, the talk, managed and directed by him, was devoted to the political situation. The host submitted a practical method of solving the difficulty of which he spoke as one owning the patent rights; put more briefly than he explained it, it was to convey the principal members of the party with which he was not in agreement to Newgate on a convenient Monday morning, and hang them, one after the other. Near Miss Amherst conversation was on a less remote subject, and her admirable acquaintance with details enabled them to speak freely. Once she disputed a question concerning the Tottenham Hotspurs, and, obtaining silence by rapping a spoon, submitted it for decision to her father. “My dear,” he answered deferentially, “we don’t want to talk shop. Not just yet awhile, at any rate.”