creature usually--stood before his master glowing but inarticulate with rage. His fists were clenched and his lips were drawn back from his teeth. Hubbard was evidently enjoying himself. He watched the effect of his placid exhortation with a sweet smile--and he applied his mordant softly uttered gibes with the pride of a sculptor at work upon an image. Each one produced some trifling but significant change in Miller's expression. Probably Hubbard was experimenting--seeking to discover either how far he could go with safety or exactly what it would be necessary to say in order to make Miller spring at his throat. They were both so engrossed that I entered without disturbing them. I listened for a moment and then created a diversion. Miller's tension was positively dangerous. I walked over, took him by the collar and propelled him from the room. "You'll find my bag downstairs," I said. "I've come to stay." Miller gave me the look of a dog that wants but does not dare to lick your hand. His gratitude was pathetic. I shut the door in his face. Hubbard did not rise. He did not even offer to shake hands. He half closed his eyes and murmured in a tired voice: "The bad penny is back again, and uglier than ever." I crossed the room and threw open a window. Then I marched into his bedroom, seized a water jug, returned and put out the fire. "You've been coddling yourself too long," I remarked. "Get up and put on your hat. It's almost one. You are going to lunch with me at Verrey's." "I have a stiff leg," he remonstrated. "Fancy! Mere fancy," I returned. The room was full of steam and smoke. Hubbard said a wicked thing and got afoot, coughing. I found his hat, crammed it on his skull and crooked my arm in his. He declined to budge and wagged a blistering tongue, but I laughed and, picking him up, I carried him bodily downstairs to a cab. He called me forty sorts of cowardly bully in his gentle sweetly courteous tones, but before two blocks were passed his ill-humour had evaporated. He remembered he had news to give me. We had not met for eighteen months. Of a sudden he stopped beshrewing me and leaned back in the cushions. I knew his ways and talked about the weather. He endured it until we were seated within the grill-room. Then he begged me very civilly to let God manage His own affairs. "I am very willing," I said. He impaled an oyster on a fork and sniffed at it with brutal indifference to the waiter's feelings. Satisfied it was a good oyster, he swallowed it. "I am no longer a bachelor," said he. "I have taken unto myself a wife." "The deuce!" I cried. "Exactly," he said. "But the prettiest imp imaginable." "My dear Hubbard, I assure you----" "My dear Pinsent, you have blundered on the truth." "But----"