at least its first law.

Quite in keeping with the picturesque, richly stored room, was the
group of men walking about the place or seated near the rough table
upon which refreshments were placed. On this table were a couple of
splendid punch-bowls of antique cut glass, which, if not full now, had
unmistakable marks of having been so earlier in the evening. A coarse
dish of yellow earthen ware beside them held an ample supply of
biscuits, and was in turn flanked by a couple of plates of cheese.
Fruit, beer, and tobacco in various forms, with abundant glasses and
pipes, completed the furnishing of the board, upon which a newspaper
supplied the place of a cloth.

Tom Bently's long, shapely limbs were disposed in a big easy-chair by
the table, his tongue being just now employed in one of his not
infrequent harangues upon art, his remarks being plentifully spiced
with profanity.

"Whatever crazy ideas on art," Bently was saying, "aren't good for any
thing else have to be put into a book. The surest recommendation in art
circles is getting out a book or giving a rubbishy lecture. Every woman
who has painted a few bunches of flowers or daubed a little pottery,
writes a book to tell how she did it; as if it were the most
astonishing thing in the world."

"Women are very like hens," interpolated Fenton; "they always cackle
most over the smallest egg."

"If any one of the crew," continued Bently, "could appreciate a
fiftieth part of the suggestions in a single sketch of an old master,