Lady Tippins partaking plentifully of the fruits of the earth (including grape-juice in the category) becomes livelier, and applies herself to elicit sparks from Mortimer Lightwood. It is always understood among the initiated, that that faithless lover must be planted at table opposite to Lady Tippins, who will then strike conversational fire out of him. In a pause of mastication and deglutition, Lady Tippins, contemplating Mortimer, recalls that it was at our dear Veneerings’, and in the presence of a party who are surely all here, that he told them his story of the man from somewhere, which afterwards became so horribly interesting and vulgarly popular.

“Yes, Lady Tippins,” assents Mortimer; “as they say on the stage, ‘Even so!’ ”

“Then we expect you,” retorts the charmer, “to sustain your reputation, and tell us something else.”

“Lady Tippins, I exhausted myself for life that day, and there is nothing more to be got out of me.”