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A LADIES' MAN.
187

responsibility of the responsibilities which she has assumed. Do I make myself clear?"

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Kensington, "it is very painful for me to speak with you upon this subject. I feel that what I have so clumsily expressed may not be correctly understood; but I appeal to your honor as gentlemen, and I am sure I will not appeal in vain when I ask you not to make further effort toward the acquaintance of the young ladies, because all that you can succeed in doing will be to render their voyage unpleasant to themselves, and interrupt, if not seriously endanger, the good feeling which I understand has always existed between Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling and her protégées."

"All right," said the man in the corner. "Have a drink, Mr. Kensington?"

"Thank you, I never drink," answered Mr. Kensington.

"Have a smoke, then?"

"I do not smoke either, thank you all the same for your offer. I hope, gentlemen, you will forgive my intrusion on you this evening. Good-night."

"Impudent puppy," said Stewart Montague, as he closed the door behind him.

But in this we did not agree with him, not even the man in the corner.

"He is perfectly right," said that individual, "and