“You shall see.  I frescoed the chapel on my place at home, and I may say there have been worse pieces of work,” replied Sir Robert, descending the stairs as he spoke, eager to get to work.

“Is he raving crazy, Mabel?  What on earth has he got on?  He isn’t respectable.  I declare to goodness, he has set my heart beating so I shan’t get over it all day,” said the startled lady to her daughter-in-law, who joined her just then.

“Oh, for shame, ma, to give yourself away like that!  Fashionable men wear those costumes altogether now,” said Mr. Ketchum, coming up.  “You see, Daisy, that if I shocked him beyond expression yesterday morning, as you said I should, he has horrified me to death to-day:  so I guess we are quits.  Come along:  let’s go down to see the trapeze-performance.”

Down they went, and, meeting Mr. Ramsay, who was coming up, Job stopped a moment to tell him to take out any of the horses that he fancied.  “Take the piebalds,” said he, “if you’d like to have a drive, and take some nice girl—­Miss Ethel or Bijou Brown—­for a two-forty shine.”

“Thanks awfully,” said Mr. Ramsay.  “But I think I had better—­that is, I had rather ask Heathcote.”

“You are horribly welcome, but I don’t think much of your taste,” replied Mr. Ketchum, not understanding what a proposition he had made.

In the lower hall they found the eminent divine, irreproachably clerical and dignified, and Captain Kendall, just arrived.  Sir Robert, hearing voices, came out, brush in hand, to welcome them, producing quite as great an impression on them as on Mrs. Ketchum.  “I belong to the working-classes now.  Just you come here and see how the fine arts are prospering in the State of Michigan,” said he, and led them into the boudoir, where he nimbly ran up a step-ladder, laid himself out on the scaffolding, and, with a bold, free touch, went on sketching a procession of Cupids which was to go around the base of the small dome, talking all the while with the utmost animation to the guests below.  “As soon as I get in this fellow riding a dolphin, I shall be entirely at your service,” said he.  “No considerations of respect and attachment to the Church or fear of the Army can influence me just now.”

The two gentlemen begged that he would go on; the ladies came in, and together they passed an agreeable morning, Sir Robert declaring that on the scaffold he was entitled to benefit of clergy, and begging the eminent divine when he left to let him have his ghostly counsel every day for at least a week.  In spite of his eminence, this gentleman had no very great breadth of view.  To sit about on boxes and window-seats, picnicking in an empty room, while the stranger upon whom he had come to call lay above him in red pajamas, painting Cupids on the ceiling, was to his mind monstrously indecorous.  It was amusing to see the dignified way in which he took the pleasantries of the party; and he made no response to Sir Robert’s farewell overture except a bow.  “Your guest is a very entertaining man,” he said to Mr. Ketchum, who accompanied him to the hat-rack, “but is he quite—­quite—­you understand?”