Mrs. Doria peevishly exclaimed, “Oh! fish-cake, I suppose!  I wish he understood a little better the obligations of relationship.”

“Whether he understands them, I can’t say,” observed Adrian, “but I assure you he is very energetic in extending them.”

The wise youth talked innuendoes whenever he had an opportunity, that his dear relative might be rendered sufficiently inflammable by and by at the aspect of the cake; but he was not thought more than commonly mysterious and deep.

“Was his appointment at the house of those Grandison people?” Mrs. Doria asked, with a hostile upper-lip.

Adrian warmed the blindfolded parties by replying, “Do they keep a beadle at the door?”

Mrs. Doria’s animosity to Mrs. Grandison made her treat this as a piece of satirical ingenuousness.  “I daresay they do,” she said.

“And a curate on hand?”

“Oh, I should think a dozen!”

Old Mr. Forey advised his punning grandson Clarence to give that house a wide berth, where he might be disposed of and dished-up at a moment’s notice, and the scent ran off at a jest.

The Foreys gave good dinners, and with the old gentleman the excellent old fashion remained in permanence of trooping off the ladies as soon as they had taken their sustenance and just exchanged a smile with the flowers and the dessert, when they rose to fade with a beautiful accord, and the gallant males breathed under easier waistcoats, and settled to the business of the table, sure that an hour for unbosoming and imbibing was their own.  Adrian took a chair by Brandon Forey, a barrister of standing.

“I want to ask you,” he said, “whether an infant in law can legally bind himself.”

“If he’s old enough to affix his signature to an instrument, I suppose he can,” yawned Brandon.

“Is he responsible for his acts?”

“I’ve no doubt we could hang him.”

“Then what he could do for himself, you could do for him?”

“Not quite so much; pretty near.”

“For instance, he can marry?”

“That’s not a criminal case, you know.”

“And the marriage is valid?”

“You can dispute it.”

“Yes, and the Greeks and the Trojans can fight.  It holds then?”

“Both water and fire!”

The patriarch of the table sang out to Adrian that he stopped the vigorous circulation of the claret.

“Dear me, sir!” said Adrian, “I beg pardon.  The circumstances must excuse me.  The fact is, my cousin Richard got married to a dairymaid this morning, and I wanted to know whether it held in law.”

It was amusing to watch the manly coolness with which the announcement was taken.  Nothing was heard more energetic than, “Deuce he has!” and, “A dairymaid!”

“I thought it better to let the ladies dine in peace,” Adrian continued.  “I wanted to be able to console my aunt”—­