this company or out of it. Touchy about Ireland, is it? Touchy--?"

"But, professor--"

"Take your hand off my arm, Mr. Garnet. I will not be treated like a
child. I am as competent to discuss the affairs of Ireland without
heat as any man, let me tell you."

"Father--"

"And let me tell you, Mr. Ukridge, that I consider your opinions
poisonous. Poisonous, sir. And you know nothing whatever about the
subject, sir. Every word you say betrays your profound ignorance. I
don't wish to see you or to speak to you again. Understand that, sir.
Our acquaintance began to-day, and it will cease to-day. Good-night to
you, sir. Come, Phyllis, me dear. Mrs. Ukridge, good-night."



CHAPTER IX

DIES IRAE

Why is it, I wonder, that stories of Retribution calling at the wrong
address strike us as funny instead of pathetic? I myself had been
amused by them many a time. In a book which I had read only a few days
before our cold-dinner party a shop-woman, annoyed with an omnibus
conductor, had thrown a superannuated orange at him. It had found its
billet not on him but on a perfectly inoffensive spectator. The
missile, said the writer, " 'it a young copper full in the hyeball." I