'The place is pretty well supplied with newspapers,' said Captain DeWitt.
'And dowagers, friend Jorian. They are cousins. 'Tis the fashion to have our tattle done by machinery. They have their opportunity to compare the portrait with the original. Come, invent some scandal for us; let us make this place our social Exchange. I warrant a good bold piece of invention will fit them, too, some of them. Madam,'—my father bowed low to the beckoning of a fan, 'I trust your ladyship did not chance to overhear that last remark I made?'
The lady replied: 'I should have shut my eyes if I had. I called you to tell me, who is the young man?'
'For twenty years I have lived in the proud belief that he is my son!'
'I would not disturb it for the world.' She did me the honour to inspect me from the lowest waistcoat button to the eyebrows. 'Bring him to me to-night. Captain DeWitt, you have forsaken my whist-tables.'
'Purely temporary fits of unworthiness, my lady.'
'In English, gout?'
'Not gout in the conscience, I trust,' said my father.
'Oh! that's curable,' laughed the captain.
'You men of repartee would be nothing without your wickedness,' the lady observed.