“Why, so there isn’t. ’Tis a poor substitute for the stomach.” “A very poor substitute. A man might better own a bread-basket.” But that was too much for Mrs. Davis. She bridled, instantly offended. “You vulgar beast! I’ll have you know I’m not to be spoken to like that, curse you!” There is nothing more incommensurable, to be sure, than the particular standards of decorum which obtain with people of Mrs. Moll’s station--now as then. Chesterfield’s eyebrows went up; he shook with a little inward laughter. “Why,” says he, “I’m all amazement! ’Twas but a _façon de parler_; or, as we call it, a figure of speech.” “Well, you can keep that part of speech’s figure to yourself.” “I will; though I’ve got enough of my own. Come--forgive my offence. What were we discussing? Sandwiches?” “Well, I say they’re a poor manner of food. The man that invented them meant well, but he went the wrong way about with it. They should be a slice of bread between two slices of meat, to my taste. He must ha’ been like Kit’s friend, who always did the right thing and did it wrong.” She was constantly referring to this “Kit.” Neither of her hearers had a notion as to who was the individual alluded to, though each supposed it to be some one familiar to the other’s knowledge. The lady, of course, thought it a woman, the gentleman a man. The name, you see, as applicable to a member of either sex, was one very well chosen for abstract purposes. It enabled her to keep up an assumption of understood references, while avoiding the danger of specific instances. “Kit” was made the mouthpiece of quite a number of imaginary characters. He--or she--might or might not have had some existence in fact--even to a certain association with that mythical personage her husband (in whom, by the by, Hamilton had scant belief); but for oracular purposes it mattered nothing whether “Kit” were a derivation or a creation. The enigma, however, had this whimsical effect--both husband and wife became presently consumed with such an insatiable curiosity to penetrate the secret of “Kit’s” identity, that they felt like to burst under the weight of silence which the irony of circumstance had imposed on them. “What friend of Kit’s was that?” inquired his lordship. “He was a plumber,” answered Moll--and turned on her hostess. “Have you ever had a friend a plumber?” It was as though she had suddenly shot a jet of iced water over the daughter of the Duke of Ormonde. Kate started, quivered, and sat rigid. “Never!” she gasped out. “Well,” said Moll, “I don’t blame you. They’ve a smell about them of putty and warm tallow that isn’t appetizing. But this friend of Kit’s was worse than most. He never mended a broken pipe but what he shut up some of his tools in it first, or stopped one leak without opening two. Aren’t you feeling well?” “Never mind my feelings,”--the response came Arctic. “I’m not accustomed to having them considered”--“by the friends of plumbers,” was implied.