splendor?"

"Grand Master, it is in that splendor the new-comer wishes to plunge."
After this imitation of some Masonic mystery the red-nosed man was
quickly taken by the shoulders and hurtled in at the door, where a
flare of red theatrical fire illuminated his sudden plunge.

"What nonsense is this?" I said to Athanasius.

"The man in the iron mask," he explained, "is in that respect what we
shall all be in a minute. Without such a protector, in passing amongst
the first year's bottles we might receive a few hits in the face."

"And do you know the new apprentice?"

"No: some stranger, evidently."

[Illustration: THE CROOKED MAN.]

"It is not hard to guess his extraction," said one of our
dinner-party. "In the East there are sorcerers with two pupils in each
eye. For his part, he seems to be braced with two pans in each
knee. He is long in the stilts like a heron, square--headed and
square-shouldered: I give you my word he is a Scotchman. For certain,"
he added, "I have seen his likeness somewhere--Ah yes, in an engraving
of Hogarth's!"

The author of this charitable criticism was a little crooked
gentleman, at whose side I had dined--a man of sharpness and wit, for
which his hunch gave him the authority. As we penetrated finally into