pitching a handful of earth.'

'You dirt your hands, hit or miss. Out of this corridor! Into my room,
and spout your worst,' cried the earl.

Gower entered his dressing-room and was bidden to smoke there.

'You're a milder boor when you smoke. That day down in Surrey with the
grand old bootmaker was one of our days, Gower Woodseer! There's no
smell of the boor in him. Perhaps his religion helps him, more than
Nature-worship: not the best for manners. You won't smoke your pipe?
--a cigar? Lay on, then, as hard as you like.'

'You're asking for the debauchee's last luxury--not a correction,' said
Gower, grimly thinking of how his whip might prove effective and punish
the man who kept him fruitlessly out of his bed.

'I want stuff for a place in the memory,' said Fleetwood; and the late
hour, with the profitless talk, made it a stinging taunt.

'You want me to flick your indecision.'

'That's half a hit.'

'I 'm to talk italics, for you to store a smart word or so.'

'True, I swear! And, please, begin.'

'You hang for the Fates to settle which is to be smothered in you, the
man or the lord--and it ends in the monk, if you hang much longer.'