grudging, conservative item from the police courts, all that the blue
pencil had left of the hopeful efforts of some poor penny-a-liner. From
the daily fulminator he had turned to the weekly medium of fun and
fooling, when, from behind another paper, the face of a gray-haired,
good-natured appearing person, quite different off the bench, chanced to
look out at him.

"Eh? That you, Ronsdale?" he said, reaching for a steaming glass of hot
beverage at his elbow. "What do you think of it, this talk of an
invasion by the Monseers?"

"Don't think anything of it."

"Answered in the true spirit of a Briton!" laughed the other. "I fancy,
too, it'll be a long time before John Bull ceases to stamp around,
master of his own shores, or Britannia no longer rules the deep. But how
is your friend, Sir Charles Wray? I had the pleasure of meeting him the
other morning in the court room."

"Same as usual, I imagine, Judge Beeson."

"And his fair niece, she takes kindly to the town and its gaieties?"

"Very kindly," dryly.

"A beautiful girl, our young Australian!" The elder man toyed with his
glass, stirred the contents and sipped. "By the way, didn't I see John
Steele in their box at the opera the other night?"

"It is possible," shortly.