'I like your end better than your beginning.'
'May I ask where, all this time, your lordship has been?'
'You may.'
'Your absence has been the cause of great anxiety. Where has your lordship been?'
'Foster, do you remember that I never did like answering questions?'
'I have a clear recollection of that trait in your lordship's character.'
'I've got it still--that trait. I said you might ask, and you have asked; so that's over and done with. What's the next business on the paper?'
We talked figures. Very pleasant figures they were--from my point of view. I learnt more from Mr. Stephen Foster about things I wanted to learn than I should have thought would have been possible in such a very few minutes. It never seemed to enter his head for a single instant that he was being had a second time. His one desire apparently was to rid himself of the consequences of his original blunder as completely as he possibly could. He wanted me, in short, to still give him credit for shrewdness, even though on one occasion he had lacked discretion. And I gave it him. Not ungrudgingly; for that, I felt, would have been to display an undue willingness to overlook his error. But I allowed him to think, by degrees, that his observations were carrying conviction to my mind, and that I perceived that, after all, he was not such a fool as I had at first supposed.
While we were still talking some one came into the room with a rush. It was Lord Reginald--with his hat on his head. I guess he was in too much of a flurry to have thought of removing it.
'What is this I hear? Foster! Who is this?'