“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’re talking about,” said Hyacinth. “Well, now the other thing—what do they call it? the Subterranean?—are you very deep in that?” the fiddler went on as if he had not heard him. “Did Pinnie tell you also about that?” “No, our friend Puppin has told me a good deal. He knows you’ve put your head into something. Besides, I see it,” said Mr. Vetch. “How do you see it, pray?” “You’ve got such a speaking eye. Any one can tell, to look at you, that you’ve taken some oath on bloody bones, that you belong to some terrible gang. 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 Subterranean.” “Is it more terrible, more deadly secret?” his companion asked with extreme seriousness. “I thought you pretended to be a radical,” Hyacinth returned. “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 observed more sententiously than he intended. “Is the time coming then, my dear young friend?” “I don’t think I’ve a right to give you any more of a warning than that,” smiled our hero. “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 crowd in all possible enjoyment with the young ladies: that’s a very natural inclination.” To which Mr. Vetch irrelevantly added: “Do you see many foreigners?” “Yes, a good many.” “And what do you think of them?” “Oh, all sorts of things. I rather like Englishmen best.” “Mr. Muniment for example?” “I say, what do you know about _him_?” Hyacinth asked. “I’ve seen him at the Puppins’. I know you and he are as thick as thieves.” “He’ll distinguish himself some day very much,” said Hyacinth, who was perfectly willing and indeed very proud to be thought a close ally of a highly original man. “Very likely—very likely. And what will _he_ do with you?” the fiddler inquired. Hyacinth got up; they looked at each other hard. “Do get me two good places in the second balcony.” Mr. Vetch replied that he would do what he could, and three days afterwards he handed his young friend the coveted order. He accompanied it with the injunction, “You had better put in all the fun you can, you know!” BOOK SECOND XII