For Mr. Bob Chater was a loud young man, emanating a swaggering air that the term “side” well fitted. To have some conceit of oneself is an excellent affair. The possession is a keel that gives to the craft a dignified balance upon the stream of life--prevents it from being sailed too close to mud; helps maintain stability in sudden gale. Other craft are keelless--they are canoes; bobbing, unsteady, likely to capsize in sudden emergency; prone to drift into muddy waters; liable to be swept anywhither by any current. Others, again--and Mr. Bob Chater was of these--are over-freighted upon one quarter or another: they sail with a list. Amongst well-trimmed boats these learn in time not to adventure, since here they are greeted with ridicule or with contempt; yet among the keelless fleets they have a position of some authority; holding it on the same principle as that by which among beggars he who has a coin--even though base--is accounted king. Bob Chater's list was ego-wards. His mighty “I”--I am, I do, I say, I know, I think--bulged from him, hanging from his voice, his glance, his gesture, his walk. In it Mrs. Chater bathed; to be carried along in the train of his mighty “I” was delectable to her. But to-night she could not effect the passage. A final effort she made to get aboard. “And in St. Petersburg!” she tempted. “I wonder if you ever saw the _Tsar_ when you were in St. Petersburg?” Bob drove her back: “St. Petersburg's a loathsome place.” Mrs. Chater tried to squeeze through. “So _gay_, they say.” Bob slammed the gate. “I wish you'd _tell_ me something instead of expecting _me_ to do all the talking. I want to hear all that's been going on here while I've been away, but I'm hanged if I can find out.” A little mortified, Mrs. Chater said: “I've hardly seen you, dear, except at meals”--then threw the onus for her son's lack of local gossip upon her husband. Addressing him, “You've been with Bob all the morning,” she told him. “I wonder you haven't given him all the news. But, there! I suppose you've done nothing but question him about what business he's done!” Mr. Chater, startled at the novelty of being drawn into table conversation while his son and his wife were present, dropped his spoon with a splash into his soup, wiped his coat, frowned at the parlour-maid, cleared his throat, and, to gain time to determine whether he had courage to say that which was burning within him, threw out an “Eh?” for his pursuing wife to Worry. Mrs. Chater pounced upon it; shook it. “What I said was that I suppose you've been doing nothing but question poor Bob about what he has done for the firm while he's been away.” Mr. Chater nerved himself to declare his mind. “There wasn't very much to question him about,” he said. His words--outcome of views forcibly expressed by his partners in Mincing Lane that morning--were the foolhardy action of one who pokes a tigress with a stick.