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Rh the most valuable piece of unimproved property in New York City. It isn't because I happen to be the owner of that property that I'm complaining. It's the high-handed way— Now, look! This is the Grand Concourse, and here is Bunker Avenue." He produced an invisible diagram with, his foot, jostling Mr. Smith-Parvis off of the rug in order to extend the line beyond the intersection to a point where the proposed street was to be opened. "Right smack through this section of—"

At that instant Mr. and Mrs. McFaddan were announced.

"Where the deuce is Stuyvie?" Mr. Smith-Parvis whispered nervously into the ear of his wife as the new arrivals approached.

"Diplomacy," whispered she succinctly. "All for effect. Last but not least. He— Good evening, dear Mrs. McFad-dán!"

In the main hall, a moment before, Mr. McFaddan had whispered in his wife's ear. He transmitted an opinion of Peasley the footman.

"He's a mutt." He had surveyed Peasley with a discriminating and intensely critical eye, taking him in from head to foot. "Under-gardener or vicar's man-of-all-work. Trained in a Sixth Avenue intelligence office. Never saw livery till he—"

"Hush, Con! The man will hear you."

"And if he should, he can't accuse me of betrayin' a secret."

To digress for a moment, it is pertinent to refer to the strange cloud of preoccupation that descended upon Mr. McFaddan during the ride uptown,—not in the