its novelty. They joked about everything. Clarges particularly was
in high feather. The wine, which came partly from the hotel and
partly from the Hon. Bovyne's hamper, flowed often and freely, and
Simpson, who was a very moderate fellow, wondered at the quantity
his friends seemed to be able to imbibe. "Without showing any traces
of it, either," he said to himself. "All this vivacity is natural;
I remember the type; in fact, I was something like it myself ten or
twelve years ago."
After dinner, Clarges rushed up stairs and down again with a small
silk plush packet of photographs tied with ribbons. The men were in
the smoking room.
"I say, I want Simpson to see Lady Violet, Bovey."
"All right, and the children too? You sentimental ass, Arthur!"
Clarges laughed. It was a funny laugh, a kind of inane ripple that
nevertheless tickled everybody who heard it. "But it's too smoky here.
Come up stairs to the drawing room. There's a jolly big drawing room
with a piano, and we can say what we want to, everyone stares here so!"
"I should think they would," said Simpson quietly. "Why do you get
yourself up like that, simply because you're in Canada? A knitted
waistcoat, three sizes too large for you--"
"That's to admit of heavy underclothing," said Clarges, not in the
least perturbed. "Knickerbockers," continued Simpson, "that are
certainly one size too small; a cap that looks like a hangman's, and
a coat that must have come off Praed St."
The Hon. Bovyne laughed long and loud. "Oh, Arthur, Arthur!" he said.
But young Clarges did not mind in the least. Indeed, had he but known
it, and be it remembered to his merit that he did not know it, he
made a fair and manly picture as he stood under the light of the
chandelier. His slim, well-knit figure was more prepossessing than
the herculean proportions of his cousin, "the strongest man in
England;" his crisp fair hair brushed boyishly up on one side and
his well-trimmed moustache of silky yellow, his keen gray eyes and
delicate features, all went far in point of attractiveness,
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