“Penitence! To thy knees, Sir!” And just as it seemed that the only son of Lord Intriguer was to be deprived of all his towels, the Ambassadress mercifully entered. “_Poor_ Mr Monteith!” she exclaimed in tones of concern bustling forward with a tablespoon and a bottle containing physic, “_so_ unfortunate.... Taken ill at the moment you arrive! But Life is like that!” Clad in the flowing circumstance of an oyster satin ball dress, and all a-glitter like a Christmas tree (with jewels), her arrival perhaps saved her guest a “whipping.” “Had I known, Lady Something, I was going to be ill, I would have gone to the Ritz!” the Hon. ‘Eddy’ gasped. “And you’d have been bitten all over!” Lady Something replied. “Bitten all over?” “The other evening we were dining at the Palace, and I heard the dear King say--but I oughtn’t to talk and excite you----” “By the way, Lady Something,” Lord Tiredstock’s third son asked: “what is the etiquette for the Queen of Dateland’s eunuch?” “It’s all according; but you had better ask Sir Somebody, Air Limpness,” Lady Something replied, glancing with interest at the portable altar. “I’ve done so, and he declared he’d be jiggered!” “I recollect in Pera when we occupied the Porte, they seemed (those of the old Grand Vizier--oh what a good-looking man he was--! such eyes--! and such a _way_ with him--! _Despot!!_) only too thankful to crouch in corners.” “Attention with that castor-oil...!” “It’s not castor-oil; it’s a little decoction of my own,--aloes, gregory, a dash of liquorice. And the rest is buckthorn!” “Euh!” “It’s not so bad, though it mayn’t be very nice.... Toss it off like a brave man, Mr Monteith (nip his nostrils, Mr Limpness), and while he takes it, I’ll offer a silent prayer for him at that duck of an altar,” and as good as her word, the Ambassadress made towards it. “You’re altogether too kind,” the Hon. ‘Eddy’ murmured seeking refuge in a book--a volume of _Juvenalia_ published for him by “Blackwood of Oxford,” and becoming absorbed in its contents: “Ah Doris”--“Lines to Doris”--“Lines to Doris: written under the influence of wine, sun and fever”--“Ode to Swinburne”--“Sad Tamarisks”--“Rejection”--“Doigts Obscènes”--“They Call me _Lily_!”--“Land of Titian! Land of Verdi! Oh Italy!”--“I heard the Clock: I heard the clock strike seven, Seven strokes I heard it strike! His Lordship’s gone to London And won’t be back to-night.” He had written it at Intriguer, after a poignant domestic disagreement, his Papa,--the “his lordship” of the poem--had stayed away however considerably longer.... And here was a sweet thing suggested by an old Nursery Rhyme, “Loves, have you Heard”: “Loves, have you heard about the rabbits?? They have such odd fantastic habits.... Oh, Children...! I daren’t disclose to You The licentious things _some_ rabbits do.” It had “come to him” quite suddenly out ferreting one day with the footman....