Alice glanced from Charley to me, and tapped her forehead gently with her fan, just as Charley snapped his head back from its constrained position. “Clothed,” said she, “but not altogether in his right mind. But we shall never get done if we go on in this way. Come! But before I go any further, Jack, I must ask you to remember that I was not as well acquainted with the Don at this time, as any reader would be who had read your book up to this point. I see that you call him a ‘man of surprises’ (a rather Frenchified phrase, by the way); but please bear in mind that the only surprise he had ever caused me was when he bloomed forth as a violinist. All the other surprises were devoured by this Silent Tomb,” said she, glancing towards Charley. Him, detected in the act of smoothing with his pipe-stem the jagged, interior edges of a blue annulus, she brought to his senses by a sharp fan-tap on his head. “What is to become of our Monograph if you go on in this way?” “Monograph? I thought you were on a polygraph, or a pantograph, and was amusing myself till you came back to the subject.” “Very true. Well, I took my seat in the stern, and he sat opposite me, looking much amused, and very curious to know what my whim was. I think I was a ‘girl of surprises’ when I began. ‘Do you know, Mr. Don,’ said I, ‘are you aware that you are a Fiend in Human Shape?’ He burst out laughing. He obviously thought that I was unusually crazy, even for me. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I can’t say that I ever appeared to myself in that light; but we will suppose that you are right; what then?’ And he settled himself to be amused. I was far from amused, I assure you. I was at my wit’s end, not knowing what to say next, so I began to make holes in the sand (as observed by the lynx-eyed Boneless). Give a dog a bad name and kill him; get the reputation of being a wag—should I say waggess?—and your simplest acts amuse. As I looked down I could see, out of the corner of my eye, his wondering smile. I felt that he mistook my embarrassment for archness, and that my silence was, in his eyes, an artistic rhetorical pause. By the way, to change the subject” (Charley groaned and received a rap), “that’s where we women have the advantage of men. You are the besieging army, we the beleaguered city. We can see any confusion in your ranks, while a panic behind our walls is invisible to you. If you feel confused, you imagine that you look so; and then you _do_ look so. It is different with us. We know—” Here Charley seized his pipe and began filling it with the most obtrusive vigor. “Conundrum!” said he, claiming attention with uplifted forefinger. “Well?” “What is the difference between a woman’s tongue and a perpetual-motion machine? Answer: I give it up!”