Mr. Fenellan repeated, in a pause, ‘Punctilio,’ and not emphatically.

‘Don’t bawl the word,’ said Mr. Radnor, at the drum of whose ears it rang and sang.  ‘Here in the City the woman’s harmless; and here,’ he struck his breast.  ’But she can shoot and hit another through me.  Ah, the witch!—­poor wretch! poor soul!  Only, she’s malignant.  I could swear!  But Colney ’s right for once in something he says about oaths—­“dropping empty buckets,” or something.’

’"Empty buckets to haul up impotent demons, whom we have to pay as heavily as the ready devil himself,"’ Mr. Fenellan supplied the phrase.  ’Only, the moment old Colney moralizes, he’s what the critics call sententious.  We’ve all a parlous lot too much pulpit in us.’

‘Come, Fenellan, I don’t think . . .’

‘Oh, yes, but it’s true of me too.’

‘You reserve it for your enemies.’

’I ’d like to distract it a bit from the biggest of ’em.’  He pointed finger at the region of the heart.

‘Here we have Skepsey,’ said Mr. Radnor, observing the rapid approach of a lean small figure, that in about the time of a straight-aimed javelin’s cast, shot from the doorway to the table.

CHAPTER IV

THE SECOND BOTTLE

This little dart of a man came to a stop at a respectful distance from his master, having the look of an arrested needle in mechanism.  His lean slip of face was an illumination of vivacious grey from the quickest of prominent large eyes.  He placed his master’s letters legibly on the table, and fell to his posture of attention, alert on stiff legs, the hands like sucking-cubs at play with one another.

Skepsey waited for Mr. Fenellan to notice him.

‘How about the Schools for Boxing?’ that gentleman said.

Deploring in motion the announcement he had to make, Skepsey replied:  ’I have a difficulty in getting the plan treated seriously:  a person of no station:—­it does not appear of national importance.  Ladies are against.  They decline their signatures; and ladies have great influence; because of the blood; which we know is very slight, rather healthy than not; and it could be proved for the advantage of the frailer sex.  They seem to be unaware of their own interests—­ladies.  The contention all around us is with ignorance.  My plan is written; I have shown it, and signatures of gentlemen, to many of our City notables favourable in most cases:  gentlemen of the Stock Exchange highly.  The clergy and the medical profession are quite with me.’

‘The surgical, perhaps you mean?’

‘Also, sir.  The clergy strongly.’

‘On the grounds of—­what, Skepsey?’

’Morality.  I have fully explained to them:—­after his work at the desk all day, the young City clerk wants refreshment.  He needs it, must have it.  I propose to catch him on his way to his music-halls and other places, and take him to one of our establishments.  A short term of instruction, and he would find a pleasure in the gloves; it would delight him more than excesses-beer and tobacco.  The female in her right place, certainly.’  Skepsey supplicated honest interpretation of his hearer, and pursued,