"Yes, yes, we know all about that; but tell us some smart things that Bawlindor said--tell us one." "Well, you know Tottenham? you know he gives awful heavy dinners? He was bragging about them one day at luncheon at East Standling, and Bawlindor said, 'There's one thing, my lord, I always envy when I'm dining with you.' 'What's that?' says Tottenham. "I envy your gas,' says Bawlindor, 'and it _escapes_.'" "Ye-es! that was not bad for Bawlindor. I hate the brute though; I daresay he stole it from somebody else. Well, how are you all, and what's the news?" "You ought to be able to tell us that," said Lord Sumph. "We're only just back in town, and you've been here all the time, haven't you, in the Tower or somewhere?" "Not I; I'm only just back too." "And where have you come from?" "Last from Kilsyth." "Devil you have!" growled Sir Thomas Buffem, edging away. "They've had jungle-fever--not jungle, scarlet-fever there, haven't they?" "O, ah, Duncan," said Clement Walkinshaw of the Foreign Office, "tell us all about that! It was awful, wasn't it? Towcester cut and run, didn't he? Mrs. Severn said he turned pea-green, and sent such a stunning caricature of him to her sister, who was staying at Claverton! We stuck it up in the smoking-room, and had no end fun about it." "I'm glad you were so much amused. It wasn't no end fun for Miss Kilsyth, however, as she was nearly losing her life." "Was she, by Jove!" said Walkinshaw, who was a "beauty boy," examining himself in the glass, and smoothing his little moustaches,--"was she, by Jove! What! our dear little Maddy?" "Our dear little Maddy," said Duncan Forbes calmly, "if you are on sufficient terms of intimacy with the young lady to speak of her in that manner in a public room. _I_ call her Miss Kilsyth; but then we were only brought up together as children, whereas you had the advantage of having been introduced to her last season, I think, Walkinshaw." "That was a hot 'un for that d--d little despatch-box!" said Sir Thomas Buffem, as Walkinshaw walked off discomfited. "Serve him quite right--conceited little brute!" "Well, but what was it, Duncan?" asked Lord Sumph. "It wasn't only the gal, heaps of people were down with it, eh?--regular hospital, and that kind of thing? I saw the Northallertons on their way south, and the duchess said it was awfully bad up there." "The duchess is a--very nice person," said Forbes, checking himself, "and, like Sir Thomas here, an old soldier." "But it was a great go, though, Duncan,--infection and all that, eh?" asked Captain Hetherington, who had joined the talkers. "There's no such thing as getting Poole's people to make you a coat; the whole resources of the establishment are concentrated on building a new rig-out for Towcester, who has sacrificed his entire get-up, and had his hair cut close, and taken no end of Turkish baths, for fear of being refused admittance at places where he was going to stay."