“Won’t you have a pipe?” Mr Vetch asked, pushing an old tobacco-pouch across the table to his visitor; and while the young man helped himself he puffed a while in silence. “What will she do with you?” he inquired at last. “What will who do with me?” “Your big beauty—Miss Henning. I know all about her from Pinnie.” “Then you know what she’ll do with me!” Hyacinth returned, with rather a scornful laugh. “Yes, but, after all, it doesn’t very much matter.” “I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Hyacinth. “Well, now the other matter—the International—are you very deep in that?” the fiddler went on, as if he had not heard him. “Did Pinnie tell you all about that?” his visitor asked. “No, our friend Eustace has told me a good deal. He knows you have put your head into something. Besides, I see it,” said Mr Vetch. “How do you see it, pray?” “You have got such a speaking eye. Any one can tell, to look at you, that you have become a nihilist, that you’re a member of a secret society. You seem to say to every one, ‘Slow torture won’t induce me to tell where it meets!’” “You won’t get me an order, then?” Hyacinth said, in a moment. “My dear boy, I offer you a box. I take the greatest interest in you.” They smoked together a while, and at last Hyacinth remarked, “It has nothing to do with the International.” “Is it more terrible—more deadly secret?” his companion inquired, looking at him with extreme seriousness. “I thought you pretended to be a radical,” answered Hyacinth. “Well, so I am—of the old-fashioned, constitutional, milk-and-water, jog-trot sort. I’m not an exterminator.” “We don’t know what we may be when the time comes,” Hyacinth rejoined, more sententiously than he intended. “Is the time coming, then, my dear boy?” “I don’t think I have a right to give you any more of a warning than that,” said our hero, smiling. “It’s very kind of you to do so much, I’m sure, and to rush in here at the small hours for the purpose. Meanwhile, in the few weeks, or months, or years, or whatever they are, that are left, you wish to put in as much enjoyment as you can squeeze, with the young ladies: that’s a very natural inclination.” Then, irrelevantly, Mr Vetch inquired, “Do you see many foreigners?” “Yes, I see a good many.” “And what do you think of them?” “Oh, all sorts of things. I rather like Englishmen better.” “Mr Muniment, for example?” “I say, what do you know about him?” Hyacinth asked. “I’ve seen him at Eustace’s. I know that you and he are as thick as thieves.” “He will distinguish himself some day, very much,” said Hyacinth, who was perfectly willing, and indeed very proud, to be thought a close ally of the chemist’s assistant. “Very likely—very likely. And what will _he_ do with you?” the fiddler inquired. Hyacinth got up; the two men looked at each other for an instant. “Do get me two good places in the second balcony,” said Hyacinth.