"I have made a truly wonderful dinner, thank you," replied the Professor, not, it is to be feared, without intention. "Even in the East I have eaten nothing approaching this." "But where did your landlady pick up this extraordinary cooking, my dear Horace?" said Mrs. Futvoye. "I thought you said she was merely a plain cook. Has she ever lived in the East?" "Not exactly _in_ the East," exclaimed Horace; "not what you would call _living_ there. The fact is," he continued, feeling that he was in danger of drivelling, and that he had better be as candid as he could, "this dinner _wasn't_ cooked by her. She--she was obliged to go away quite suddenly. So the dinner was all sent in by--by a sort of contractor, you know. He supplies the whole thing, waiters and all." "I was thinking," said the Professor, "that for a bachelor--an _engaged_ bachelor--you seemed to maintain rather a large establishment." "Oh, they're only here for the evening, sir," said Horace. "Capital fellows--more picturesque than the local greengrocer--and they don't breathe on the top of your head." "They're perfect dears, Horace," remarked Sylvia; "only--well, just a _little_ creepy-crawly to look at!" "It would ill become me to criticise the style and method of our entertainment," put in the Professor, acidly, "otherwise I might be tempted to observe that it scarcely showed that regard for economy which I should have----" "Now, Anthony," put in his wife, "don't let us have any fault-finding. I'm sure Horace has done it all delightfully--yes, delightfully; and even if he _has_ been just a little extravagant, it's not as if he was obliged to be as economical _now_, you know!" "My dear," said the Professor, "I have yet to learn that the prospect of an increased income in the remote future is any justification for reckless profusion in the present." "If you only knew," said Horace, "you wouldn't call it profusion. It--it's not at all the dinner I meant it to be, and I'm afraid it wasn't particularly nice--but it's certainly not expensive." "Expensive is, of course, a very relative term. But I think I have the right to ask whether this is the footing on which you propose to begin your married life?" It was an extremely awkward question, as the reader will perceive. If Ventimore replied--as he might with truth--that he had no intention whatever of maintaining his wife in luxury such as that, he stood convicted of selfish indulgence as a bachelor; if, on the other hand, he declared that he _did_ propose to maintain his wife in the same fantastic and exaggerated splendour as the present, it would certainly confirm her father's disbelief in his prudence and economy. And it was that egregious old ass of a Jinnee, as Horace thought, with suppressed rage, who had let him in for all this, and who was now far beyond all remonstrance or reproach!