Ffolliott sniggered uneasily: “Really!” he drawled. It was faintly borne in upon him that he was neither shining nor making an impression. His eyes ranged aimlessly round the room, and he added fatuously: “So this is the sort of place where you literary fellows hang out!” Gomme stared at him in grim silence. The exquisite Ponsonby shifted in his seat: “None of my people have ever been literary,” he drawled; “they all belonged to the virile professions.... At least, I _suppose_ that’s the office-girl.... However, as I said before, I’m not a literary man myself----” Gomme’s eyes glowed threateningly, but the resplendent fool seated before him was too heavy-witted a dullard to hear anything but the cackle of his own voice, or to be alert to anything but the sordid desire of his own eyes. Gomme laughed drily. “Man?... You’re not a man!” said he. Ponsonby Wattles Ffolliott was genuinely shocked: “Really, you know----” He stopped. He saw that this yellow-haired, gaunt other man, a loose-limbed, powerful fellow, was glaring at him in anything but friendly fashion, and he was dumb. Gomme’s level voice went calmly on: “Tsh!” said he, “you’re a perambulating monkey, scented and got up and flung upon the town by Providence to remind us all from what we came--and to what we may return--if we forget that we were meant to grow into God’s good image.” “You--you’re a common fellow!” said Ponsonby Wattles Ffolliott. Gomme’s keen eyes remained fixed on him with a steady contempt, that ate even into this dunce’s conceit. He went on, giving judgment on the travesty of manhood that sat before him: “You silly fool! It’s disgusting that a pretty woman can’t walk down the high streets of the most civilized city in the world without the risk of some painted peacock of an ’Arry like yourself----” “’Arry, indeed!” bleated the exquisite. Ponsonby Wattles Ffolliott was wounded in his most religious parts. “I have the blood of the Plantagenets in my veins,” he said. He was very indignant. He spoke with simple faith, as if of the certainty of a glorious resurrection. Gomme turned, and called out: “Open the door, Oliver!” The door swung open, and discovered Noll at the head of the stairway, gripping a long broom in his hands. “Oliver,” said Netherby, and his eyes shone, “this is, I think, positively the first occasion on which we have flung a genuine Plantagenet down the office-stairs. It is indeed an emotional moment.... I am thrilled.” He made a grab at the throat of Ponsonby Wattles Ffolliott, who evaded it with an upward fling of the elbow as he scrambled in a ladylike way to his patent-leather feet, and put himself into an affected attitude of defence, his silk hat in one hand and his cane in the other. “Wh--what are you--do--ing?” he asked plaintively. Netherby Gomme laughed, eyeing him as might a hungry dog a bone.