the first time we met, and told me so - told me so to my

face, which I had the virtue to keep. I bear you no malice

for it, Dick; you were right; I am a humbug.'

You may fancy how Esther quailed at this new feature of the

meeting between her two idols.

And then, again, in a parenthesis:-

That,' said Van Tromp, 'was when I had to paint those dirty

daubs of mine.'

And a little further on, laughingly said perhaps, but yet

with an air of truth:-

'I never had the slightest hesitation in sponging upon any

human creature.'

Thereupon Dick got up.

I think perhaps,' he said, 'we had better all be thinking of

going to bed.' And he smiled with a feeble and deprecatory

smile.

Not at all,' cried the Admiral, 'I know a trick worth two of

that. Puss here,' indicating his daughter, 'shall go to bed;

Tales and Fantasies