"I really can't see," David replied, "that your press men are much better over here than in the States. In any case, Mr. Wadham, you mustn't believe all you read." "You will give my regards to your father and the other members of your firm," the Marquis concluded, with the faintest possible indication of his head towards the door. "I shall probably have some instructions of an interesting nature to give you before long, with regard to the cancellation of, at any rate, the home estate mortgages. Ah, here is Thomas! Very much obliged for your attention, Mr. Wadham." The lawyer made his adieux in somewhat confused fashion, and left the room with an ignominious sense of dismissal. The Marquis glanced at the clock. "I am a creature of habit, Mr. Thain," he said. "At twelve o'clock I walk for an hour in the Park. Will you give me the honour of your company?" "Anywhere you say," David assented. "There was just a little matter I wanted to mention--nothing important." "Precisely," the Marquis murmured, ringing the bell. "You will return to lunch, of course? I shall take no denial. My daughter would be distressed to miss you. Gossett," he added, as they moved out into the hall, "my coat and hat, and tell Lady Letitia that Mr. Thain will lunch with us. Have you any idea, Gossett," he added, as he accepted his cane and gloves, "how to make cocktails?" "I have a book of recipes, your lordship," was the somewhat doubtful reply. "See that cocktails are served before luncheon," the Marquis instructed. "You see, we are not altogether ignorant of the habits of your countrymen, Mr. Thain, even if in some cases we may not ourselves have adopted them. A cocktail is, I gather, some form of alcoholic nourishment?" Thain indulged in what was, for him, a rare luxury--a hearty laugh. He threw his head back, showing all his white, firm teeth, and the little lines at the sides of his eyes wrinkled up with enjoyment. Suddenly a voice on the stairs interposed. "I must know the joke," Letitia declared. "How do you do, Mr. Thain? A laugh like yours makes one feel positively delirious with the desire to share it. Father, do tell me what it was?" "To tell you the truth, my dear," the Marquis replied, quite honestly, "I am a little ignorant as to the humorous application of a remark I have just made." "It was your father's definition of an American institution, Lady Letitia," David explained, "and I am afraid that its humour depended solely upon a certain environment which I was able to conjure up in my mind--a barroom at the Waldorf, say." "Another disappointment," Letitia sighed. "Mr. Thain is lunching with us, dear," her father announced. "So glad," Letitia remarked, nodding to Thain. "We shall meet again, then."