"Indeed!"
"May I have the pleasure of showing you?" said Mr. Rodney, gently unfolding the journal for men and women, and laying one finger upon the Van Adam paragraph. The tweed suit pretended to read it carefully. "You will notice a slight mistake at the close," Mr. Rodney continued in a resentful voice, and glancing from the tweed suit to Mrs. Verulam and back again. "It would not have crept in" (errors have no other gait than that generally attributed to the insect world) "had I known that we were to have the unexpected pleasure of welcoming you to London."
"Thank you very much."
Mr. Rodney had now set foot upon the path of magnanimity. He bit his lower lip, and took another step upon it.
"I shall be glad to rectify my error next week," he said.
"I am obliged to you."
"In the meanwhile, anything that I can do to render your short"—he paused interrogatively; there was no rejoinder, and he continued—"stay among us agreeable, I shall be only too happy to accomplish."
The tweed suit bowed convulsively, and Mrs. Verulam began to breathe audibly upon her sofa.
"Mitching Dean," Mr. Rodney added, with a sense of glorious martyrdom, "Mitching Dean is entirely at your service."