Sir Nigel was disgusted to see the narrator twist his mouth into a sweet, shrewd, repressed grin even as he expectorated into the nearest receptacle.  The grin was greeted by a shout of laughter from his companions.

“What did he say, Stebbins?” someone cried.

“He said,” explained Mr. Stebbins deliberately, “he said that an allowance was the proper thing.  He said that a man of his rank must have resources, and that it wasn’t dignified for him to have to ask his wife or his wife’s father for money when he wanted it.  He said an allowance was what he felt he had a right to expect.  And then he twisted his moustache and said, ‘what proposition’ did I make—­what would I allow him?”

The storyteller’s hearers evidently knew him well.  Their laughter was louder than before.

“Let’s hear the rest, Joe!  Let’s hear it!”

“Well,” replied Mr. Stebbins almost thoughtfully, “I just got up and said, ’Well, it won’t take long for me to answer that.  I’ve always been fond of my children, and Lily is rather my pet.  She’s always had everything she wanted, and she always shall.  She’s a good girl and she deserves it.  I’ll allow you——­” The significant deliberation of his drawl could scarcely be described.  “I’ll allow you just five minutes to get out of this room, before I kick you out, and if I kick you out of the room, I’ll kick you down the stairs, and if I kick you down the stairs, I shall have got my blood comfortably warmed up and I’ll kick you down the street and round the block and down to Hoboken, because you’re going to take the steamer there and go back to the place you came from, to the Slosh thing or whatever you call it.  We haven’t a damned bit of use for you here.’  And believe it or not, gentlemen——­” looking round with the wry-mouthed smile, “he took that passage and back he went.  And Lily’s living with her mother and I mean to hold on to her.”

Sir Nigel got up and left the club when the story was finished.  He took a long walk down Broadway, gnawing his lip and holding his head in the air.  He used blasphemous language at intervals in a low voice.  Some of it was addressed to his fate and some of it to the vulgar mercantile coarseness and obtuseness of other people.

“They don’t know what they are talking of,” he said.  “It is unheard of.  What do they expect?  I never thought of this.  Damn it!  I’m like a rat in a trap.”

It was plain enough that he could not arrange his fortune as he had anticipated when he decided to begin to make love to little pink and white, doll-faced Rosy Vanderpoel.  If he began to demand monetary advantages in his dealing with his future wife’s people in their settlement of her fortune, he might arouse suspicion and inquiry.  He did not want inquiry either in connection with his own means or his past manner of living.  People who hated him would be sure to crop up with stories of things better left alone.  There were always meddling fools ready to interfere.