"So glad you are awake at last, Owen!" says Mrs. Bohun. "That silly craze about tulips," says Mrs. Herrick, contemptuously, "I have always treated it with scorn. Why could not the art idiots have chosen some better flower for their lunatic ravings? What can _any_ one see in a tulip?" "Sometimes earwigs," says the man called Owen. "Nonsense! I don't believe even earwigs would care for it. Foolish, gaudy thing, uplifting its lanky neck as though to outdo its fellows! There is really nothing in it." "Like the country," says Owen, meekly, "according to Mrs. Bohun." "And like Bella Fitzgerald," says that graceless person, with a little grimace. "My _dear_ Olga," says Mrs. Herrick, glancing quickly to right and left. "Do you never _think_?" "As seldom as ever I can. But why be nervous, Hermia? If any one were to compare _me_ with a tulip, I should die of--no, not chagrin--_joy_, I mean, of course. Monica, what are you saying to Owen?" "I don't think I know who Owen is," says Monica, with a glance at the gentleman in question, that is half shy, half friendly. "That argues yourself unknown," says Olga. "He is Master Owen Kelly, of Kelly's Grove, county Antrim, and the bright and shining light of the junior bar. They all swear by him in Dublin,--all, that is except the judges, and they swear _at_ him." Monica looks at Master Owen Kelly in a faintly puzzled fashion. "It is all quite true," says that young man, modestly, in a reassuring tone. "Now tell us what you were saying to each other," says Olga. "It was nothing," returns Monica. "We were only talking about this Egyptian war. But I don't really," nervously, "understand anything about it." "You needn't blush for your ignorance on that score," says Mr. Kelly. "You're in the general swim: nobody knows." "It is the most senseless proceeding altogether," says Hermia Herrick, in her decided way. "Gladstone's wars are toys. He has had three of them now, dear little fellow, to amuse himself with, and he ought to be proud of his victories." "According to Erasmus, war is the 'malady of princes,'" says Lord Rossmoyne, sententiously. "Rossmoyne isn't well," says Mr. Kelly, softly. "He is calling the wood-cutter a prince. It reminds one of Hans Andersen's fairy-tale: all hewers of wood and drawers of water were blood-royal then." "Yet Gladstone has intellect," says Mrs. Herrick, in oh, _such_ a tone: would that the master of Hewarden could have heard her! "Some!" said Mr. Kelly. "He is indeed 'a thing apart.' I know nothing like him. 'Once, in the flight of ages past, there lived a _man_.' In ages to come they will say that of our modern immortal William. They will probably add that no _real_ man has ever lived since." "How silly you can be at times!" says Olga. "It isn't mine; it's Montgomery's nonsense," says Mr. Kelly, sadly. "Blame him, not me."