In consequence of his wife's allusion to their age Major Monarch
observed: "Naturally, it's more for the figure that we thought of
going in. We can still hold ourselves up." On the instant I saw
that the figure was indeed their strong point. His "naturally"
didn't sound vain, but it lighted up the question. "SHE has got the
best," he continued, nodding at his wife, with a pleasant after-
dinner absence of circumlocution. I could only reply, as if we were
in fact sitting over our wine, that this didn't prevent his own from
being very good; which led him in turn to rejoin: "We thought that
if you ever have to do people like us, we might be something like it.
SHE, particularly--for a lady in a book, you know."

I was so amused by them that, to get more of it, I did my best to
take their point of view; and though it was an embarrassment to find
myself appraising physically, as if they were animals on hire or
useful blacks, a pair whom I should have expected to meet only in one
of the relations in which criticism is tacit, I looked at Mrs.
Monarch judicially enough to be able to exclaim, after a moment, with
conviction: "Oh yes, a lady in a book!" She was singularly like a
bad illustration.

"We'll stand up, if you like," said the Major; and he raised himself
before me with a really grand air.

I could take his measure at a glance--he was six feet two and a
perfect gentleman. It would have paid any club in process of
formation and in want of a stamp to engage him at a salary to stand
in the principal window. What struck me immediately was that in
coming to me they had rather missed their vocation; they could surely
have been turned to better account for advertising purposes. I