He actually betrayed symptoms of irritation.
"Noding of de kind--what you know of it? I have still sixty-seven bottles with which I wish to try my little experiments."
That was enough for me. Still sixty-seven bottles! And, for all I knew, or for anything I could do to prevent him, he might unstopper them, not only one by one, but all together, and at any moment. Half a dozen policemen were outside--they had gathered together under the apparent impression that in my establishment a riotous assemblage was taking place. I called three or four of them into the house. I pointed to Mr. Steingard on the landing.
"Put that man outside--with his bottles!"
A painful and, I may add, an expensive scene ensued. But at last there was an end of Steingard, and of the party.
The next day I called on Nowell. He had returned to town.
"Nowell," I asked, more in sorrow than in anger, "what induced you to suppose that 'A Battlefield Up-to-Date, with Realistic Illustrations and Experiments,' would be a suitable subject for an evening party?"
He put his feet on the table and his hands in his pockets, and he rattled his coppers--and he smiled.
"Well, you see, my dear Parker, I wasn't invited. I am aware that it was an oversight--the purest oversight. But, of course, if I had been invited I should not have recommended Steingard's lecture."
I was aware he had not been invited--perfectly aware. There had been no oversight about it. The man is not a member of our social circle. We had never meant to invite him. But to think that merely on that account he should have played us such a trick!