Everything tends that way. What an utter sell it would be!"
"You were with us at the picture scene?" murmured Adonais.
"Yes. Dalton looked wretchedly cut up, when that devil of a valet, who
must be an accomplice, scraped the new paint off. The picture must have
been got up in New York by Dalton and the Denslows."
"Perhaps the Duke, too, was got up in New York, on the same principle,"
suggested Adonais. "Such things are possible. Society is intrinsically
rotten, you know, and Dalton"----
"Is a fellow of considerable talent," sneered Lethal,--"but has enemies,
who may have planned a duke."
Adonais coughed in his cravat, and hinted,--"How would it do to call him
'Barnum Dalton'?"
Adonais appeared shocked at himself, and swallowed a minim of wine to
cleanse his vocal apparatus from the stain of so coarse an illustration.
"Do you hear those creatures?" whispered Dalton. "They are arranging
scandalous paragraphs for the 'Illustration.'"
A moment after, he was gone. I spoke to Lethal and Adonais.
"Gentlemen, you are in error about the picture and the Duke; they are as
they now appear;--the one, an excellent copy, purchased as an original,--
no uncommon mistake; the other, a genuine highness. How does he strike
you?"
Lethal cast his eyes around to see who listened.
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