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164 an unexpected compliment, however much it might please her. "Oh, is that meant for me?" she laughed. "Some time, maybe, I'll have a trade for you."

After dinner, when the men withdrew to the smoking-room and the Madeira had been passed round with the cigars, Floyd received a lesson from his grandfather in the art of hospitality. He knew beforehand just how the conversation would go; at all the dinners for young people given by Mrs. Halket, the Colonel pursued the same tactics; he had even tutored Floyd in the art. "It's always an awkward moment when the men are left alone; the host must then embrace all the guests in his conversation—turn quickly from one to another—bringing them all in—and so get things started briskly. It's his duty to show an interest in each individual—to be mindful of them all." So now he began, shooting out his questions with a brisk, masterful, rising inflection—"Well, Mr. Bradford, and what is the largest single fee on record in the legal profession in Avalon?" "They say that in the Lovell case Mr. Scrooby got one hundred and fifty thousand dollars," replied Bradford. "A hundred and fifty thousand! Dr. Torrence, what has the medical profession to say to that? Not much, eh? No use in curing people only to ruin 'em. Ha, ha! that's a good humanitarian view. Mr. Carr, painters haven't got to asking a hundred and fifty thousand dollars yet for a portrait, have they? But the architects nowadays seem pretty prosperous, Mr. Gryson. Mr. Harlan, I guess you and I will both agree that the iron and steel business, though it has n't such brilliant moments as the law, is a tolerably satisfactory sort of grind."

Thus the old gentleman passed rapidly from one to another of the company, turning his head with each sentence toward some new face. Floyd was drearily aware that this methodical display of geniality was rather overpowering and that the young men sat, as it were, blasted in its path. He had observed the same effects and had