man who deserts a woman under those conditions?"

"He is a detestable dog, of course," declared the Celebrity.

And the cock in the inn yard was silent.

"I should love to be able to quote from a book at will," said the
quieting voice, for the sake of putting an end to an argument which bid
fair to become disagreeable. "How do you manage to do it?"

"It was simply a passage that stuck in my mind," he answered modestly;
"when I read a book I pick them up just as a roller picks up a sod here
and there as it moves over the lawn."

"I should think you might write, Mr. Allen, you have such an original way
of putting things!"

"I have thought of it," returned the Celebrity, "and I may, some fine
day."

Wherewith he thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered off with
equanimity undisturbed, apparently unaware of the impression he had left
behind him. And the Fifth Reader story popped into my head of good King
William (or King Frederick, I forgot which), who had a royal fancy for
laying aside the gayeties of the court and straying incognito among his
plainer subjects, but whose princely origin was invariably detected in
spite of any disguise his Majesty could invent.