There Constable sat, after his disgraceful break-down, with his long legs very much in their owner’s, as well as in everybody else’s way, as mute as a fish. When Mr. Dadd succeeded in introducing, in a sentence of his reply to the sorry compliment which had been paid to him, a handsome reference to a pair of young friends as had not always been present at their blow-outs—but better late than never—and he could wish no happier thing to the young gentleman and lady than that they might be speedily provided with partners both at home and abroad, Oliver, carefully refraining from a glance at Fan and with all eyes fixed on himself, was content to utter a curt ‘Thank you,’ while he held up his glass before his reddened face so clumsily that he occasioned a diversion by pouring half the wine down Mrs. Dadd’s silk sleeve. She was so humble that she would not allow him to do what he could to remedy the accident, but of course there was a stain just above the elbow. Anyone with half an eye might see how much she was annoyed, from the way in which her husband, who could read her looks, interrupted his speech, by pulling out his handkerchief and offering it to her to rub the spot, while he remarked in a half-audible aside to his next neighbours that he and Jack would not hear the end of that ’ere stupid accident of Constable’s, till they forked out another silk gown to mother, when by rights Constable the villain ought to pay the piper. Constable would willingly have paid the piper if he had known how to do it, without implying patronage and offence. It was the last of his thoughts to act as a kill-joy at the picnic. He strove with the usual failure of such striving to be social. He could not make a speech fit for the occasion, but to Fan’s disdain he was one of the first to consent to sing in his fairly tuneful voice. He chose advisedly the pretty old people’s-song, ‘The Lass of Richmond Hill.’ But his choice of a song proved one of Oliver’s many failures with the best intentions. If the lass were ever meant for such an audience, all its younger members at least had grown away from her influence. They had as little appreciation of her attractions as of her designation. The ‘young ladies’ present would not have relished the word ‘lass’ applied to any of them, and would not have cared to be admired for such hum-drum and homely qualities as those which had inspired the poet. The greater portion of the listeners barely freed Oliver Constable from the injurious suspicion of singing down to their standard, while they took care to express a little supercilious surprise at his taste in songs, and to talk of this particular specimen as ‘an old-fashioned thing’ with no ‘go’ in it. He would have done a great deal better if he had made fools of them by offering them the old doggrel of the mad scholar, which Jack Dadd had somehow picked up, and which he flung at Oliver with a mocking ‘Look here, Constable, I’ll tip you a college stave.’