"Well, look here, Alsager I'm not clever, and all that sort of thing, you know; I'm not particularly sweet on my own opinion; of course, being a Plunger, I can't spell or write, or pronounce my _r_'s 'cordin' to _Punch_ and the other funny dogs, and so I've no doubt Billy Gomon's right; and it's doosid clever of Mr. Spofforth, a gentleman whose acquaintance I've not the pleasure of possessing--and don't want, by Jove, that's more!-doosid clever of Mr. Spofforth to rake up a dunghill story out of the newspapers when it had been forgotten, and to put the unfortunate devils who were concerned in it on to the stage, and bring back all the old scandal. I've no doubt it's doosid clever; and I'm sure it's a very gentlemanly thing of Mr. Spofforth to do; so gentlemanly that, if any of my people had been mixed up in it, I'd have tried the strength of my hunting-crop over Mr. Spofforth's shoulders!" And having concluded, Cis Hetherington leant back lazily, and resumed his contemplation of the ceiling. There was a pause for a moment, and then Bertram said: "Quite right, Hetherington; horrible piece, dreary and dirty. D--d unpleasant to think that one can't go to the theatre with a modest woman without having innuendoes and _doubles entendres_ thrown at you." "By Jove, a second edition of the miraculous gift of tongues!" said a man seated on Laurence's right. "I never heard the Blab so charmingly eloquent. You were with him at the theatre, Alsager; who was the lady whom he so deliciously described as a 'modest woman' that he escorted?" The speaker was Lord Dollamore, a man of good abilities and position, but a confirmed Sybarite and a renowned _roué_. "Bertram escorted no one; he merely had a seat in a box with Lady Mitford and her husband," said Laurence coldly. He hated Lord Dollamore. As he himself said, he "didn't go in to be strait-laced; but Dollamore was a cold-blooded ruffian about women, and, worse still, a boaster." "Ah, with Lady Mitford!" said Lord Dollamore, slowly expelling a mouthful of smoke; "I have the pleasure of her acquaintance. She's very nice, Alsager!" There was a succulence in the tone in which these last words were spoken that sounded unpleasantly on Laurence's ear; so he said shortly, "I saw Lady Mitford for the first time to-night." "Oh, she's very nice; a little too classical and statuesque and Clite-like for my taste, which leans more to the _beauté-du-diable_ order; but still Lady Mitford's charming. Poor little woman! she's like the young bears, with all her troubles before her." "Her troubles won't be many, one would think," said Laurence, who was growing irritated under his companion's half-patronizing, half-familiar tone in speaking of Lady Mitford. "Won't they?" said Lord Dollamore, with another slow expulsion of smoke; this time in the shape of rings, which he dexterously shot one through the other.