“Well, you two women can’t lead a naked man into a cab,” said she; “I should love to see it, but I’m afraid you will never do it.” They began to weep again. The old lady grew impatient. “Leave the man alone,” said she. And she added, blowing her nose: “I could have loved that creature.” Indeed, Major Modeyne was always the gentleman--even at bay with the Inevitable. CHAPTER XXIV _Which tells, with quite Unnecessary Frankness, of what chanced at the Tavern of_ “The Cock and Bull” _in Fleet Street_ In the dining-room of _The Cock and Bull_ was laughter, and the clink of glasses, and some hiccup--for the dinner was long since at an end, and the guests held much wine--not wholly without giddiness and the confusion of tongues. There was more than a hint of Babel. It was the feast of Saint Valentine’s Day, and the commercial gentlemen, fore-gathered there, made the sentiment at _The Cock and Bull_ this night sacred to the Ladies. Major Modeyne, being in the chair, sat at the head of the table; and a-down it, along both sides, were city men; and at the end of all the poetic, sallow, and vague-eyed landlord of the tavern, who, so repute wagged a whispering tongue, had not been above taking his Double First at Oxford--a vague prize to your ordinary mortal that savours of the mysteries of Eleusis and a full hand of trumps at the gaming-table of life, though ’tis said to be useless enough, being of the nature of fireworks in the grey fastnesses of the skull. There’s something of the awesome in big names. However that may be, our landlord was a gloomy fellow in his cups, and ran to latinities, so that the wit came mostly from the head, where was the Authority of the Chair--indeed, Modeyne had repartee so long as he could keep an eyelid up, though fragments of it had served the world of badinage before. The debauch being dedicate to the ladies, then, our gloomy landlord raised the glass to the respectable sentiment of _Sweethearts and Wives_. And, the toast being drunk, as indeed was the company, the Chair, as an excuse to empty the glasses again, gave the toast of retort, _Other Fellows’ Sweethearts and Wives_--the hiccup which was the full-stop to the Major’s waggery being drowned in a shout of laughter and the noisy drinking of the toast. Indeed, they stood up to it, one foot on chair and one on table, giving it with musical honours, though, as the draper, a fellow of polygamous sentiments from his own showing, said: “This standing on chairs displayed a childlike confidence in the design of creation and man’s destiny under all conditions to maintain the upright position on but two legs, that would have done credit to a Sunday-school teacher.”