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 for he smiled back indulgently at his image in the glass, and watched complacently while Brutus smoothed its folds.

"A gentleman should always have twenty coats,"" he remarked, turning toward me. "Personally, I never travel with less than twenty-five—a point in my favor, is it not, my son?"

"And when we remember the lady who accompanies the coats" I bowed, and he turned slowly back to the mirror.

"Let us trust," he replied coldly, "you will not be obliged to remind yourself often that she is a lady, and that she shall be treated as one both by you and by me as long as she remains beneath this roof."

I felt a pleasing sense of triumph at the success of my remark, and abruptly determined to drive it home.

"Sir," I said, "You astound me."

"Astound you?" He left his neckcloth half undone, and stepped toward me, alertly courteous. "You mean you take exception to what I have just said?"

"Indeed not," I replied, with another bow. "I find you changed this morning—into a good example instead of a bad one."

And then before he could reply, I leaned over the chair he had quitted. Lying in the