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.—What beastly bore is on for to-night?

.—I don't think your hostess would be flattered to hear you.

.—It isn't the hostess—it's the whole blanked thing.

.—Oh!

.—Who is she, by the way?

.—The blanked thing?

.—No; the hostess.

.—Our first hostess is Mrs. B. G. Busby Salamander, for dinner, and—

.—Gad! I hope the dinner will be as hot as the name—

.—Afterward a dance at the Robinsons—

.—Cold soup may be all very well in Russia; but it is deuced poor stuff in New York.

.—And where, may I ask, do you get cold soup?

.—At half the places we dine. A week ago at the Bitterns, Monday at the Tinderboxes, and last night down-stairs, my love, with my legs stretched under our own mahogany.

.—It isn't mahogany, it's English oak.

.—A mere figure of speech—the soup was cold, just the same.

.—A mere figure of speech—the soup was boiling.

.—My love!

.—My dear!

.—Mrs. Tewksbury!

.—Mr. Tewksbury!

.—You are warm, my love; wherein you are very unlike the soup.

.—The soup was delicious.

.—The soup was execrable.

.—Baron Vendredi spoke specially of it, and asked if our chef was a cordon bleu.

.—Did he? That's rich! I forgive the soup. What did you say?

.—Oh, I parried the blow!

.—You were wise. Mrs. Magillieuddy may be a bas bleu, although I question any bas at all; but she is decidedly not a cordon bleu.

.—Bridget is a very good cook.

.—Oh, yes—who's been at my dressing-case?

.—Yourself, principally.

.—I can only find one brush.

.—You have two in your hands.

.—Oh, so I have. I was going to remark, my dear, that Baron Vendredi pays you a good deal of attention.

.—I was his hostess last night.

.—You are not always his hostess.

.—Frenchmen are all manner, you know.

.—H'm. Does he dine at the Salamanders to-night?

.—I believe so.

.—Does he know you are to be there?

.—Probably—he sent me flowers to-day.

.—The devil!

.—No; Baron Vendredi.

.—It's all the same. You shall not wear them.

.—"Shall not" doesn't sound well, Mr. Tewksbury.

.—It means well, though. You are pinning them in your corsage now.

.—Am I?

(shouting).—Yes, you are; and you may take them out too!

(removes them).—As you like.

(somewhat mollified).—Thanks! You have other flowers?

.—None that I care to wear.

.—I sent you some to-day.

.—I received them.

.—Did they please you?

.—Oh, yes!

.—Why don't you wear them?

.—You told me not to.

.—I? Ah, I see! Those were my flowers you were fastening on your dress?

.—Yes.

.—Mrs. Tewksbury, you are an angel, as usual, and as usual I am—

.—Mr. Tewksbury.

.—Right you are! What shall it be?

(archly).—Do you think that diamond bracelet—?

.—You shall have it to-morrow morning. Am I forgiven?

.—There is nothing to be forgiven. You laid the train, fired it, and then got singed with your own powder.

.—Then the bracelet—

.—Will be merely a souvenir of the occasion.

.—Ah!