enjoy without delay; Lady Aurora suggesting that Mr Muniment might be rather awkward about making tea, and that they should take the business off his hands. Paul gave it up to them, with a pretence of compassion for their conceit, remarking that at any rate it took two women to supplant one man; and Hyacinth drew him to the window, to ask where he had encountered Sholto and how he liked him. They had met in Bloomsbury, as Hyacinth supposed, and Sholto had made up to him very much as a country curate might make up to an archbishop. He wanted to know what he thought of this and that: of the state of the labour market at the East End, of the terrible case of the old woman who had starved to death at Walham Green, of the practicability of more systematic out-of-door agitation, and the prospects of their getting one of their own men—one of the Bloomsbury lot—into Parliament. “He was mighty civil,” Muniment said, “and I don’t find that he has picked my pocket. He looked as if he would like me to suggest that _he_ should stand as one of our own men, one of the Bloomsbury lot. He asks too many questions, but he makes up for it by not paying any attention to the answers. He told me he would give the world to see a working-man’s ‘interior’. I didn’t know what he meant at first: he wanted a favourable specimen, one of the best; he had seen one or two that he didn’t believe to be up to the average. I suppose he meant Schinkel, the cabinet-maker, and he wanted to compare. I told him I didn’t know what sort of a specimen my place would be, but that he was welcome to look round, and that it contained at any rate one or two original features. I expect he has found that’s the case—with Rosy and the noble lady. I wanted to show him off to Rosy; he’s good for that, if he isn’t good for anything else. I told him we expected a little company this evening, so it might be a good time; and he assured me that to mingle in such an occasion as that was the dream of his existence. He seemed in a rare hurry, as if I were going to show him a hidden treasure, and insisted on driving me over in a hansom. Perhaps his idea is to introduce the use of cabs among the working-classes; certainly, I’ll vote for him for Parliament, if that’s his line. On our way over he talked to me about you; told me you were an intimate friend of his.” “What did he say about me?” Hyacinth inquired, with promptness. “Vain little beggar!” “Did he call me that?” said Hyacinth, ingenuously. “He said you were simply astonishing.” “Simply astonishing?” Hyacinth repeated. “For a person of your low extraction.” “Well, I may be queer, but he is certainly queerer. Don’t you think so, now you know him?” Paul Muniment looked at his young friend a moment. “Do you want to know what he is? He’s a tout.” “A tout? What do you mean?” “Well, a cat’s-paw, if you like better.” Hyacinth stared. “For whom, pray?”