“Fourteen!--really, quite a small affair.” And with the air of one accustomed all her life to banquets in palaces of state, she swept out of the room. The only time she betrayed herself was just before the arrival of the guests, when her mind reverted to her daughter. “The Portmans are giving a ball next week, Arthur, and I want Corinne to go. Are you sure he is coming?” “Don't worry, Kitty, Portman's coming; and so are the Colonel, and Crossbin, and Hodges, and the two Chicago directors, and Mason, and a lot more. Everybody's coming, I tell you. If Mukton Lode doesn't sit up and take notice with a new lease of life after tonight, I'm a Dutchman. Run, there's the bell.” The merciful Scribe will spare the reader the details incident upon the arrival of the several guests. These dinners are all alike: the announcements by the butler; the passing of the cocktails on a wine tray; the standing around until the last man has entered the drawing-room; the perfunctory talk--the men who have met before hobnobbing instantly with each other, the host bearing the brunt of the strangers; the saunter into the dining-room, the reading of cards, and the “Here you are, Mr. Portman, right alongside Mr. Hodges. And Crossbin, you are down there somewhere”; the spreading of napkins and squaring of everybody's elbow as each man drops into his seat. Neither will the reader be told of the various dishes or their garnishings. These pages have so far been filled with little else beside eating and drinking, and with reason, too, for have not all the great things in life been begun over some tea-table, carried on at a luncheon, and completed between the soup and the cordials? Kings, diplomats and statesmen have long since agreed that for baiting a trap there is nothing like a soup, an entree and a roast, the whole moistened by a flagon of honest wine. The bait varies when the financier or promoter sets out to catch a capitalist, just as it does when one sets out to catch a mouse, and yet the two mammals are much alike--timid, one foot at a time, nosing about to find out if any of his friends have had a nibble; scared at the least disturbing echo--then the fat, toothsome cheese looms up (Breen's Madeira this time), and in they go. But if fuller description of this special bait be omitted, there is no reason why that of the baiters and the baited should be left out of the narrative.