So the girl called That Boy round and gave him the message; I don’t know why she should give it, but she did, and the Lady helped her out with a word or two.

The little volume—­its cover protected with soft white leather from a long kid glove, evidently suggesting the brilliant assemblies of the days when friends and fortune smiled-came presently and the Lady opened it.—–­You may read that, if you like, she said,—­it may show you that our friend is to be pilloried in good company.

The Young Girl ran her eye along the passage the Lady pointed out, blushed, laughed, and slapped the book down as though she would have liked to box the ears of Mr. John Milton, if he had been a contemporary and fellow-contributor to the “Weekly Bucket.”—­I won’t touch the thing,—­she said.—–­He was a horrid man to talk so:  and he had as many wives as Blue-Beard.

—­Fair play,—­said the Master.—–­Bring me the book, my little fractional superfluity,—­I mean you, my nursling,—­my boy, if that suits your small Highness better.

The Boy brought the book.

The old Master, not unfamiliar with the great epic opened pretty nearly to the place, and very soon found the passage:  He read, aloud with grand scholastic intonation and in a deep voice that silenced the table as if a prophet had just uttered Thus saith the Lord:—­

    “So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed
     Entering on studious thoughts abstruse; which Eve
     Perceiving—­”

went to water her geraniums, to make a short story of it, and left the two “conversationists,” to wit, the angel Raphael and the gentleman,—­there was but one gentleman in society then, you know,—­to talk it out.

    “Yet went she not, as not with such discourse
     Delighted, or not capable her ear
     Of what was high; such pleasure she reserved,
     Adam relating, she sole auditress;
     Her husband the relater she preferred
     Before the angel, and of him to ask
     Chose rather; he she knew would intermix
     Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute
     With conjugal caresses:  from his lips
     Not words alone pleased her.”

Everybody laughed, except the Capitalist, who was a little hard of hearing, and the Scarabee, whose life was too earnest for demonstrations of that kind.  He had his eyes fixed on the volume, however, with eager interest.

—­The p’int ’s carried,—­said the Member of the Haouse.

Will you let me look at that book a single minute?—­said the Scarabee.  I passed it to him, wondering what in the world he wanted of Paradise Lost.

Dermestes lardarius,—­he said, pointing to a place where the edge of one side of the outer cover had been slightly tasted by some insect.—­Very fond of leather while they ’re in the larva state.

—­Damage the goods as bad as mice,—­said the Salesman.

—­Eat half the binding off Folio 67,—­said the Register of Deeds.  Something did, anyhow, and it was n’t mice.  Found the shelf covered with little hairy cases belonging to something or other that had no business there.