him on the teeth with the dish every time I hold it to him. And to
see him stare at Lady Lossie as he does!"

"A painter must want to get a right good hold of the face he's got
to paint," said Malcolm. "Is he here often?"

"He's been here five or six times already," answered Wallis, "and
how many times more I may have to fill his glass, I don't know. I
always give him second best sherry, I know. I'm sure the time that
pictur' 's been on hand! He ought to be ashamed of himself. If
she's been once to his studio, she's been twenty times--to give
him sittings as they call it. He's making a pretty penny of it, I'll
be bound! I wonder he has the cheek to show himself when my lady
treats him so haughtily. But those sort of people have no proper
feelin's, you see: it's not to be expected of such."

Wallis liked the sound of his own sentences, and a great deal
more talk of similar character followed before they got back from
the tailor's. Malcolm was tired enough of him, and never felt
the difference between man and man more strongly than when, after
leaving him, he set out for a walk with Blue Peter, whom he found
waiting him at his lodging. On this same Blue Peter, however,
Wallis would have looked down from the height of his share of the
marquisate as one of the lower orders--ignorant, vulgar, even
dirty.

They had already gazed together upon not a few of the marvels of
London, but nothing had hitherto moved or drawn them so much as the
ordinary flow of the currents of life through the huge city. Upon
Malcolm, however, this had now begun to pall, while Peter already