Part 18

“I should think not, Miss Milton,” said I admiringly.

“Oh, I should like to meet that man, and tell him what I think of him!” said she. “Such men as he do more harm than a dozen agitators. So contemptible, too!”

“It’s revolting to think of,” said I.

“I’m so glad you--” began Miss Milton, quite confidentially; I pulled my chair a trifle closer, and cast an apparently careless glance towards Mrs. Hilary. Suddenly I heard a voice behind me.

“Eh, what? Upon my honor it is! Why, Carter, my boy, how are you? Eh, what? Miss Milton, too, I declare! Well, now, what a pity Annie didn’t come!”

I disagreed. I hate Annie. But I was very glad to see my friend and neighbor, Robert Dinnerly. He’s a sensible man--his wife’s a little prig.

“Oh, Mr. Dinnerly,” cried Miss Milton, “how funny that you should come just now? I was just trying to remember the name of a man Mrs. Dinnerly told me about. I was telling Mr. Carter about him. You know him.”

“Well, Miss Milton, perhaps I do. Describe him.”

“I don’t believe Annie ever told me his name, but she was talking about him at our house yesterday.”

“But I wasn’t there, Miss Milton.”

“No,” said Miss Milton, “but he’s got the next place to yours in the country.”

I positively leaped from my seat.

“Why, good gracious, Carter himself, you mean?” cried Dinnerly, laughing. “Well, that is a good un--ha-ha-ha!”

She turned a stony glare on me.

“Do you live next to Mr. Dinnerly in the country?” she asked.

I would have denied it if Dinnerly had not been there. As it was, I blew my nose.

“I wonder,” said Miss Milton, “what has become of Aunt Emily.”

“Miss Milton,” said I, “by a happy chance you have enjoyed a luxury. You have told the man what you think of him.”

“Yes,” said she; “and I have only to add that he is also a hypocrite.”

Pleasant, wasn’t it? Yet Mrs. Hilary says it was my fault. That’s a woman all over!

THE LITTLE WRETCH

Seeing that little Johnny Tompkins was safely out of the country, under injunctions to make a new man of himself, and to keep that new man, when made, at the Antipodes, I could not see anything indiscreet in touching on the matter in the course of conversation with Mrs. Hilary Musgrave. In point of fact, I was curious to find out what she knew, and supposing she knew, what she thought. So I mentioned little Johnny Tompkins.

“Oh, the little wretch!” cried Mrs. Hilary. “You know he came here two or three times? Anybody can impose on Hilary.”

“Happy woman I--I mean unhappy man, Mrs. Hilary.”

“And how much was it he stole?”

“Hard on a thousand,” said I. “For a time, you know, he was quite a man of fashion.”

“Oh, I know. He came here in his own hansom, perfectly dressed, and--”

“Behaved all right, didn’t he?”