Chetwynd looked terribly annoyed; but there was no choice left for him but to extend his hand and mutter something to the effect that he had not had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of his wife’s friends before.

“Glad to know you, sir—­not one of us—­not in the profession, I think?”

“No—­er—­no,” responded Chetwynd feebly.

“And the ’appier you, take my tip for it.  The wear and tear of the ’alls, sir, no one but a pro can estimate.”

Here his wife, an over-dressed, showy individual a shade more of a cockney than himself, interposed with a coarse laugh.

“Get along, you jolly old humbug, you!  You couldn’t live away from them—­could he, dear?” addressing Saidie, who was maliciously enjoying the effect that their sudden entrance had produced upon her brother-in-law and his friend.

“Ah; you think so, d’ye? that’s all you know about it.  Give me a nice quiet ‘public’ with a hold-established trade and me and the missis cosy-like in the private bar; that’s the life for yours truly when he can take the farewell ben.”

“How soon are your friends going to take their leave, Bella?” asked Chetwynd in an undertone to his wife.

But Bella turned her back upon him without deigning to give him so much as a word.

“I think I had the pleasure of seeing you perform the other night, Mrs. Doss,” remarked Mr. Meynell.

“Don’t she look a figger in tights? now tell the truth and shame the old gentleman:  a female as fat as my wife ought not never to leave off her petticoats, that’s what I says.”

“Samuel, fie!  You make me blush.”  His wife coughed discreetly behind her hand.  “It’s a new departure, I grant; but I’ve had a good many compliments paid me since I took to the nautical style, I can tell you.”

“Gammon!” grunted Mr. Doss, with a dissatisfied air.  “Did you see her as the ‘Rabbit Queen,’ sir?  My! the patience that woman displayed in the training of them little furry animals would have astonished you.  Struck the line, sir, out of her own ’ed!  ‘I’m going, Samuel,’ she said, ‘to supply a want.’  ‘You!’ I says.  ‘Me!’ says she; ’they have got their serpents,’ she says, ’and their ducks, and their pigeons and their kangaroos,’ ‘What’s their void?’ said I.  ‘Rabbits,’ she says, and there you are!”

“Saidie, why don’t you sit down?  We will have some supper directly,” said Bella.

“Oh, my dear, I’m dying for a drink!” cried Miss Blackall, flinging herself in an attitude more easy than graceful into an armchair.

Bella opened the chiffonier and produced glasses and a spirit stand.

“Saves the trouble of ringing for the servant,” she said archly to Meynell.

Chetwynd could fairly have groaned; and when his wife put the climax upon everything by drinking out of her sister’s glass he could contain himself no longer.  “I never saw you touch spirits before,” he said, determined that his friend should know that his wife was an abstemious woman.