There are more ways than one of killing flies, and there is something to be said about the pastime on the score of taste. The method adopted by Mr. Fox-Cordery was peculiar and original. He had before him a tumbler and a bottle, and he was smoking a cigar. The tumbler was inverted, and into it the operator had inveigled a large number of flies, which he stupefied with smoke. The cigar he was smoking was a particularly fragrant one, and the flies could not therefore complain that they were being shabbily treated. When they were rendered completely helpless he transferred them to the bottle, taking the greatest possible care to keep it corked after each fresh importation, in order that the prisoners should not have the opportunity of escaping in any chance moment of restored animation. By this means Mr. Fox-Cordery had collected some hundreds of flies, whose dazed flutterings and twitchings he watched with languorous interest, his air being that of a man whose thoughts were running upon other matters almost, if not quite, as important as this. He continued at his occupation until the tumbler was empty and the bottle nearly full; and then he threw the stump of his cigar out of window, and, with a smart wrench at the cork, put the bottle on the mantelshelf. He rose, and stood beside his sister.
"Did Mr. Dixon give you no inkling of what he wanted to see me about?" he asked, in his low, languid voice.
"None whatever," replied Charlotte, drawing the stocking she was darning from her left hand, and stretching it this way and that, to assure herself that the work was well done. They were her own stockings she was mending, and Heaven knows how many times they had gone through the process.
"And you did not inquire?"
"I did not inquire."
Some note in her voice struck Mr. Fox-Cordery as new and strange, and he regarded her more attentively.
"The old affair, I suppose," he said maliciously.
"If you mean that Mr. Dixon has any intention of reopening the subject with you," said Charlotte, laying aside the sorely-darned stocking and taking up its fellow, "you are mistaken."
Perhaps the act of stooping had brought the blood to her face, for there was a flush upon it when she lifted her head.
"It is not often that I am."