CULCH. (_with intense interest_). Quite the contrary, I assure you! You were saying you always ordered it out of economy? MR. B. Pardon _me_--I was saying nothing of the sort. I was saying that I told the Manager I knew that was why he _thought_ I ordered it--a rather different thing! "You're quite wrong," I said. "You may pay twopence-halfpenny a pound for it, and charge me half-a-crown, if you like, but I mean to _taste_ that tunny!" I was determined not to be done out of my tunny, Sir! CULCH. (_breathlessly_). And what did the tunny--I mean the Manager--say to _that_? MR. B. Oh, made more difficulties--it wasn't to be got, and so on. At last I said to him (very quietly, but he saw I was in earnest), "Now I tell you what it _is_--I'm going to _have_ that tunny, and, if you refuse to give it me,--well, I shall just send my courier _out_ for it, that's all!" So, with _that_, they brought me some--and anything more delicious I never tasted in all my life! CULCH. (_to himself_). If I can only keep him on at this tunny! (_Aloud._) And--er--what _does_ it taste like exactly, now? MR. B. (_pregnantly._) You _order_ it, Sir--_insist_ on having it. Then you'll _know_ what it tastes like! [_He devotes himself to his soup._ CULCH. (_with his eyes lowered--to himself._) I _must_ look up in another _minute_--and then! [_He shivers._ CHAPTER XV. +Culchard comes out Nobly.+ SCENE--_The Table d'Hote at Lugano_; CULCHARD _has not yet caught_ MISS PRENDERGAST'S _eye_. CULCHARD (_to_ MR. BELLERBY). Have you--ah--been up Monte Generoso yet? MR. B. No. (_After reflecting._) No, I haven't. But I was greatly struck by its remarkably bold outline from below. Indeed, I dashed off a rough sketch of it on the back of one of my visiting cards. I ought to have it somewhere about me now. (_Searching himself._) Ah, I thought so! (_Handing a vague little scrawl to_ CULCHARD, _who examines it with the deepest interest_.) I knock off quite a number of these while I'm abroad like this. Send 'em in letters to relatives at home--gives them a notion of the place. They are--ar--kind enough to value them. (CULCHARD _makes a complimentary mumble_.) Yes, I'm a very rapid sketcher. Put me with regular artists, and give us half an hour, and I--ar--venture to say I should be on terms with them. Make it _three_ hours, and--well, I dare say I shouldn't be in it. PODBURY (_who has dropped into the chair next to_ MISS PRENDERGAST _and her brother_). Bob, old chap, I'll come in the middle, if you don't mind. I say, this _is_ ripping--no idea of coming across you so soon as this. (_Lowering his voice, to_ MISS P.) Still pegging away at my "penance," you see! MISS PREND. The pleasure is more than mutual; but do I understand that Mr.----? So _tiresome_, I left my glasses up in my room! [_She peers up and down the line of faces on her own side of the table._ MISS T. (_to_ CULCH.). I want you should notice that girl. I think she looks just as nice as she can be, don't you?