amicably to nothing, and successfully, though not without effort,
preserved his uppermost member from the seductions of the nymph,
Gravitation, who was on the look-out for his whole length shortly.

"Ha! ha!" he shouted, about a minute after Mrs. Berry had spoken, and
almost abandoned himself to the nymph on the spot. Mrs. Berry's words
had just reached his wits.

"Why do you laugh, young man?" she inquired, familiar and motherly on
account of his condition.

Ripton laughed louder, and caught his chest on the edge of the table and
his nose on a chicken. "That's goo'!" he said, recovering, and rocking
under Mrs. Berry's eyes. "No friend!"

"I did not say, no friend," she remarked. "I said, no one; meanin', I
know not where for to send it to."

Ripton's response to this was: You put a Griffin on that cake.
Wheatsheaves each side."

"His crest?" Mrs. Berry said sweetly.

"Oldest baronetcy 'n England!" waved Ripton.

"Yes?" Mrs. Berry encouraged him on.

"You think he's Richards. We're oblige' be very close. And she's the
most lovely!--If I hear man say thing 'gainst her."