The Cockney turned his pop-eyes at the lad, and, with the bigotry of a proselyte, broached his favourite topic. “Young man, we kin do anythink they kin do in New York, not to speak of a trick or two blokes go to Paris to see done; an’ occysionally we kin go ’em one better. Yer don’t know this tarn yet. It’s a bloomin’ prize puzzle, that’s wot it is; they’s a bit o’ everythink ’ere!” The fish followed, barracuda as none but Tortoni can broil; then terrapin, teal, venison, and so, with Western prodigality, to the dessert. The guests, having met and subdued the vanguard of hunger, did hilarious battle with the dinner, stabbing and slashing gallantly. No one dared to put his good fortune to the hazard of the inquiry, though each was curious, until at last the lad in the sweater could resist wonder no longer. The demands of nature satisfied, his mind sought for diversion. He laid his fork down, and pushed back his plate. “It’s too good to be true,” he said. “I want to know what we’re in for, anyway! What’s your little game? It may be bad manners to be inquisitive, but I’ve slept in a wagon, washed in a horse-trough and combed my hair with tenpenny nails for so long that I’m not responsible. The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things! and I balk right here until I know what’s up your sleeve. No bum gets a Delmonico dinner at a coffee-joint on the Barbary Coast for nothing, I don’t think; and by John Harvard, I want to be put next to whether this is charity, insanity, a bet, or are you trying to fix us for something shady?” “What d’you want to stampede the show for?” interrupted the man in spectacles. “We haven’t been asked to pay in advance, have we? We’ve signed no contract! You were keen to begin as a heifer is for salt, and when we draw a prize you want to look a gift-horse in the jaw! Get onto yourself!” “Gents,” the unctuous voice of the third man broke in, “they’s champagne a-comin’!” Coffee John had been looking from one to the other in some amusement. “Easy, gents,” he remarked. “I ain’t offended at this ’ere youngster’s expreshings, though I don’t sye as wot I mightn’t be, if ’e wa’n’t a gentleman, as I can see by the wye ’e ’andles ’is knife, an’ the suspicious fack of ’is neck bein’ clean, if he _do_ wear a Jarsey. Nar, all I gort to sye is, thet this ’ere feast is on the squyre an’ no questions arsked. As soon as we gits to the corffee, I’ll explyne.”