"And the fellow is such an inveterate gossip that everybody here knows everybody else's business. The proprietor is a quiet, gentlemanly fellow, and is the only person in the place who keeps his presence of mind in the presence of Jones, and is not in mental subjugation to the flabby, florid, crawling boss of the rest of the show. "You may laugh, but I warrant you wouldn't be here a day before Jones would get the upper hand of you. On the outside, of course, he is as fixedly deferential as if every moment were to be your last, and the cab were waiting to take you to the Station; but inwardly, you feel he is wound about you like a boa-constrictor. I do so long to see him swathing you in his coils! Won't you come down, and give your patients a chance?" "My dear Jack," I wrote back to the Infant, "I am so sorry that you are having bad weather. You don't say so, but when a man covers six sheets of writing-paper I know what it means. I must say you have given me an itching to try my strength with the only Jones; but, alas! this is a musical neighbourhood, and there is a run on sore throats, so I must be content to enjoy my Jones by deputy. Is there any other attraction about the shanty?" Merton Towers took up the running: "Barring ourselves and Jones," he wrote, "and perhaps O'Rafferty, there isn't a decent human being in the hotel. The ladies are either old and ugly, or devoted to their husbands. The only ones worth talking to are in the honeymoon stage. But Jones is worth a hundred petticoats: he is tremendous fun. We've got a splendid spree on now. I think the Infant told you that Jones has not enjoyed that actual contact with the 'hupper suckles' which his simple snobbish soul so thoroughly deserves; and that, in spite of the eternal Lord Porchester, his acquaintance is less with the _beau monde_ than with the Bow and Bromley _monde_. Since the Infant and I discovered this we have been putting on the grand air. Unfortunately, it was too late to claim titles; but we have managed to convey the impression that, although commoners and plain misters, we have yet had the privilege of rubbing against the purple. We have casually and carelessly dropped hints of aristocratic acquaintances, and Jones has bowed down and picked them up reverently.