"I have, indeed!" cried Miss Nimrod, goaded almost to oratory by Miss Jack's taunts. "Not the ugly, unlovely life of the average woman. I have exhausted all the sensations which are the common guerdon of youth and health and high spirits, and which have for the most part been selfishly monopolized by man. The splendid audacity of youth has burnt in my veins and fired me to burst my swaddling clothes and strike for the emancipation of my sex. I have not merely played cricket in a white shirt and lawn tennis in a blue serge skirt, I have not only skated in low-heeled boots and fenced in corduroy knickerbockers, but I have sailed the seas in an oil-skin jacket and a sou'-wester and swum them in nothing and walked beneath them in the diver's mail. I have waded after salmon in long boots and caught trout in tweed knickerbockers and spats. Nay, more! I have proclaimed the dignity of womanhood upon the moors, and have shot grouse in brown leather gaiters and a sweet Norfolk jacket with half-inch tucks. But this is not the climax, I have----" [Illustration: _Wee Winnie on her Travels._] "Yes, I know. You are Wee Winnie. You travelled alone from Charing Cross to China-Tartary. I have not read your book, but I have heard of it." "And what have you heard of it?" "That it is in bad taste." "Your remark is in worse," interposed Lillie severely. "Ladies, ladies!" murmured Silverdale. "This is the first time we have had two of them in the room together," he thought. "I suppose when the thing is once started we shall change the name to the Kilkenny Cats' Club." "In bad taste, is it?" said Miss Nimrod, promptly whipping a book out of her skirt pocket. "Well, here is the book. If you can find one passage in bad taste I'll--I'll delete it in the next edition. There!" She pushed the book into the hands of Miss Jack, who took it rather reluctantly. "What's this?" asked Miss Jack, pointing to a weird illustration. "That's a picture of me on my elephant, sketched by myself. Do you mean to say there's any bad taste about that?" "Oh, no; I merely asked for information. I didn't know what animal it was." "You astonish me," said the artist. "Have you never been to a circus? Yes, this is Mumbo Jumbo himself." "Surely, Miss Jack," said Lord Silverdale gravely. "You must have heard, if you have not read, how Miss Nimrod chartered an elephant, packed up her Kodak and a few bonnet-boxes and rode him on the curb through Central Asia. But may I ask, Miss Nimrod, why you did not enrich the book with more sketches? There is only this one. All the rest are Kodaks." "Well, you see, Lord Silverdale, it's simpler to photograph." "Perhaps, but your readers miss the artistic quality that pervades this sketch. I am glad you made an exception in its favor." "Oh, only because one can't Kodak oneself. Everything else I caught as I flew past." "Did you catch any Tartars?" "Hundreds. I destroyed most of them."