“I ’ave more friends to ’elp me than perhaps you know of,” said the Baroness, mysteriously, “but it ain’t only that! I never let a servant dust it! Miss Wynward does it, but she’s too much afraid to do more than touch ’em with the tip of her feather brush. They come to me sometimes and complain that the china is dirty. ‘Let it be dirty,’ I say, ‘_that_ won’t break it, but if you clean it, you will!’ Ha! ha! ha!” At that moment Harriet Brandt entered the room, moving sinuously across the carpet as a snake might glide to its lair. Anthony Pennell could not take his eyes off that gliding walk of hers. It seemed to him the very essence of grace. It distracted all his attention from the china. “The Baron has just come in,” observed Harriet to her hostess. “Oh! well! come along and leave the rest of the china till after dinner,” said Madame Gobelli. “Gustave likes to ’ave ’is dinner as soon as ’e comes ’ome.” She thrust her arm through that of Anthony Pennell, and conducted him to the dining-room, where the Baron (without having observed the ceremony of changing his coat or boots) was already seated just as he had come in, at the table. He gave a curt nod to the visitor as Mr. Pennell’s name was mentioned to him, and followed it up immediately by a query whether he would take fish. Mr. Pennell sat out the meal with increasing amazement at every course. He, who was accustomed, in consequence of his popularity, to sit at the tables of some of the highest in the land, could liken this one to nothing but a farmhouse dinner. Course succeeded course, in rapid succession, and there was no particular fault to find with anything, but the utter want of ceremony--the mingling of well-known and aristocratic names with the boot and shoe trade--and the way in which the Baron and Baroness ate and drank, filled him with surprise. The climax was reached when Mr. Milliken, who was late for dinner, entered the room, and his hostess, before introducing him to the stranger, saluted him with a resounding smack on either cheek. Pennell thought it might be his turn next, and shuddered. But the wine flowed freely, and the Baroness, being in an undoubted good humour, the hospitality was unlimited. After dinner, the Baron having settled to sleep in an armchair, Madame Gobelli proposed that the party should amuse themselves with a game of “Hunt the slippers.” She was robed in an expensive satin dress, but she threw herself down on the ground with a resounding thump, and thrusting two enormous feet into view, offered her slipper as an inducement to commence the game.