"Are you a public man, sir?"
"Thank Heaven, no. I am a private gentleman."
"Your portraits are not put up in the shop windows for sale?"
"No."
"Then what I want to know is," said Mr. Parkinson, doggedly sticking to his point, "how your portrait fell into her hands."
"And that, I repeat," said Mark Inglefield, impatiently, "is exactly what I am unable to tell you."
"She couldn't have bought it. She must have had it given to her by some one."
"Well?"
"Whoever gave it to her must know you, and you must know him."
A murmur of approval ran through the throng. Nothing better pleases such an audience, as was now assembled, than an argument logically worked out.