student of human nature makes his favourite Beatrice, on receiving a hint, run down the garden like a lapwing, to do a bit of deliberate eavesdropping; whilst her masculine counterpart, Benedick, has to hear his share of the disclosure inadvertently and reluctantly. Similarly, in Love's Labour Lost, when the mis-delivered letter is handed to Lord Boyet to read, he says:—
This letter is mistook; it importeth none here;
It is writ to Jaquenetta.
That, of course, settles the matter in his mind; but the Princess, true to her sex, says eagerly, and with a perfectly clear conscience:—
We will read it, I swear;
Break the neck of the wax, and let every one give ear.
"Don't let us judge women by our standard here, for we can't afford to be judged by their standard in some other"
"Hear, hear; loud applause; much laughter," interrupted the delegate flippantly. "Well, we were yarning and laughing over Mrs. Beaudesart's simplicity; and it came out that Nelson and Mooney knew there was some reason why you dare n't go back to where you were known; but they had never heard the story; so I put them on their honour, and told them the whole affair."
"How did the story run?" I asked.
My vicar repeated it. (Which is more than I can do.)
"Well, that ought to drum me out of her esteem," I remarked, with the feeling of a man respited on the scaffold. "And it hangs together fairly well for a fabrication. But I'm honestly sorry to have been forced to put such an office on you, Moriarty. Indeed, I wonder how you could have the nerve to tell such a yarn in a woman's hearing."
"Friendship, old man," replied my factor warmly. "But it ain't a fabrication. I found I couldn't invent anything with the proper ring of truth about it; so, the evening before the disclosure, when Jack the Shellback was in the store getting some things to take out with him, I asked him what was the most blackguardly prank he ever got off with; and that was the yarn he told me. Of course, I altered it a bit to suit you."
"And Mrs. Beaudesart believes it?" I queried hopefully.
"I don't see what else she can do, considering the way the thing came-off. She would have to be like one of the ancient prophets."
"And you think it has the proper effect?"
"No effect at all," replied the nuncio decidedly. "Her manner's just the same when she hears you talked about promiscuously; and she does n't take it any way ill to overhear a quiet joke about the thing that's supposed to be coming-off some time soon. It's a failure so far as that goes. Certain as life."
"Well, Moriarty, if dishonour has no effect, we must try disgrace."
"Why, they're the same. You better go back to school, Collins."
"They're entirely independent of each other—if you insist on bringing me back to school, to waste my time over one barren pupil. Poverty, for instance, is disgrace without dishonour; Michael-and-Georgeship is dishonour without disgrace. In cases like mine, the dishonour lies
