. There he found the genial Jack, friendly, affectionate, expansive, as ever: a trifle balder, maybe, but otherwise unchanged. There, too, he found several of his former acquaintances ("old friends," he called them), who, after having his name recalled to their recollection by Jack Price, said, "Hulloa, Errington, where the dooce have you been hiding yourself?" and shook hands with the utmost cordiality. Then Jack Price insisted on adjourning to a favourite haunt of his, and ordering supper in celebration of Algernon's unexpected visit. And the "old friends" were flatteringly willing to do Algernon the honour of eating it. They were mostly unfledged lads, such as affected very often the society of Jack Price, who was really a kind companion, and gave the boys long lectures on steadiness of purpose and energy, illustrated by warning examples from his own career, and delivered amid such agreeable accompaniments to moral reflection as hot whisky-punch and first-rate Havanas. But there were one or two older men: a newspaper editor from Dublin, who had been at college with Jack; and a grey-whiskered major of cavalry, who had served with Jack during his brief military career; and a middle-aged attaché to His Majesty's legation at the Grand Duchy of Prundenhausen, who had been a contemporary of Jack in the Foreign Office. And all these gentlemen, being warmed by wine and meat, became excessively companionable and entertaining. The Dublin editor, a fat, short, rather humorous-looking individual, sang Irish sentimental ballads with a sweet tenor voice, and, at the whisky-punch stage of the entertainment, brought tears into the eyes of the cavalry major and Jack Price. The middle-aged attaché did not cry; he considered such a manifestation beneath the dignity of the diplomatic service. And although he affected a bitter tone, and secretly considered himself to be a mute inglorious Talleyrand, much injured and unappreciated by the blundering chiefs at the Foreign Office, yet to outsiders he maintained the dignity of the service, at the cost of a good deal of trouble and starch.

Algernon did not cry either. Indeed, the combination of sentimental ballad and stout Dublin editor struck him as being pleasantly comic. But he paid the singer so easy and well-turned a compliment as put to shame the clumsy "Thanks, O'Reilly!" "By Jove, that was delightful!" "What a sweet whistle you have of your own!" and the general shout of "Bravo!" by which the
