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 behaved himself extremely well. The literary Miss Purse, however, was so unfortunate as to tread upon his professional toes. Her opinions irritated Mr. Fox. He cleared his throat, screwed about in his seat, twitched his stock, and cleared his throat again.

'I have never,' he whispered to Lanice, 'taken much stock in toothy women, especially when they have Adam's apples.'

Poor Miss Purse did actually have one of these secondary attributes of the male, and she was very toothy. Mr. Fox blew his nose. Miss Purse made the point that many women have assumed men's names as noms-de-plume. Homer, for instance—who knew whether or not Homer might not be some gifted Grecian matron whose husband had caddish objections to seeing his wife gain notoriety? She seized upon any little-known author as a potential lady. He jumped up.

'I like to prevaricate, even lie, as well as any man,' he whispered to Lanice, 'but may I hang if I can sit and listen to this rubbish, ugly as home-made sin.'

Lanice went out with him.

'Wait,' she whispered, 'I'll run down and fetch the Nautilus Madeira.'

He flimsily protested that he had been joking, that he never drank Madeira so late in the evening. But it was at best a half-hearted protest. They went below to the dining-room where the refreshments of oysters, ham, sponge cake, hidden mountain, lemonade, peach supreme, and ice water were spread out. Here Mr. Fox drank her health in the famous Ma-