"But you need not have deranged the temperature," said Jack. "Impetuosity always distresses me. All these are questions which it will take some time to answer. Let me persuade you, in the first place, to make yourself comfortable. Don't mind me; I am at the crisis of my novel, which is very interesting. I have just been thinking how it might be adapted for the stage--there's a character that Fechter could make anything of. Now, my dear fellow, don't stand on ceremony. Take a bath and change your dress, and in the mean time there will be time to cook something--the cookery here is not bad for the country. After that we'll discuss all our news. I daresay our friend there is in no hurry," said the elder brother, opening his book and puffing slowly towards the Curate the languid smoke of his cigar. "But, by Jove, I _am_ in a hurry, though," said that nameless individual, coming forward. "It's all very well for you: you put a man up to everything that's dangerous, and then you leave him in the lurch, and say it don't matter. I daresay it don't matter to you. All that you've done has been to share the profit--you've nothing to do with the danger; but I'm savage to-night, and I don't mean to stand it any more," said the stranger, his great chest expanding with a panting breath. He, too, looked as if he would have liked to seize the languid spectator in his teeth and shake some human feeling into him. Jack Wentworth raised his eyebrows and looked at him, as he might have looked at a wild beast in a rage. "Sit down, savage, and be quiet," he said. "Why should I trouble myself about you?--any fool could get into your scrape. I am not in the habit of interfering in a case of common crime. What I do, I do out of pity," he continued, with an air of superiority, quite different from his tone to his brother. But this look, which had answered before, was not successful to-night. "By Jove, I _am_ savage!" said the other, setting his teeth, "and I know enough of your ways to teach you different behaviour. The parson has treated me like a gentleman--like what I used to be, though he don't like me; but you!--By Jove! It was only my own name I signed, after all," he continued, after a pause, lowering his voice; "but you, you blackleg--" "Stop a little," said the Curate, rising up. "Though you seem both to have forgotten it, this is my room. I don't mean to have any altercations here. I have taken you in for the sake of your--family," said Mr Wentworth, with a momentary gasp, "and you have come because you are my brother. I don't deny any natural claims upon me; but I am master of my own house and my own leisure. Get up, Jack, and tell me what you want. When I understand what it is, you can lounge at your will; but in the mean time get up and explain: and as for you, Wodehouse--"