WYLDER'S HAJVD.
19
institutions provided for their maintenance—confine their
uproar to the period immediately antecedent to their meal,
and perform the actual process of deglutition with silent
attention, and only such suckings, lappings, and crunchings,
as illustrate their industry and content. It is the distinc-
tive privilege of man to exert his voice during his repast,
and to indulge also in those specially human cachinnations
which no lower creature, except that disreputable Aus-
tralian biped known as the " laughing jackass," presumes
to imitate; and to these vocal exercises of the feasters
respond the endless ring and tinkle of knife and fork on
cjhina plate, and the ministering angels in white chokers
behind the chairs, those murmured solicitations which hum
round and round the ears of the revellers.
I don't know how it happened, but Wylder sat beside
Miss I^ake. I fancied he ought to have been differently
placed, but Miss Brandon did not seem conscious of his
absence, and it seemed to me that the handsome blonde
would have been as well pleased if he had been anywhere
but where he was. There was no liking, though some
faint glimmerings both of annoyance and embarrassment in
her face. But in Wylder's I saw a sort of conceited con-
sciousness, and a certain eagerness, too, while he talked;
though a shrewd fellow in many ways, he had a secret
conviction that no woman could resist him.
"I suppose the world thinks me a very happy fellow,
Miss Lake?" he said, with a rather pensive glance of in-
< quiry into that young lady's eyes, as he set down his
hock-glass.
"I'm afraid it's a selfish world, Mr. Wylder, and thinks
very little of what does not concern it."
"Now, you, I dare say," continued Wylder, not caring
to perceive the soupfon of sarcasm that modulated her
answer so musically, " look upon me as a very fortunate
fellow?"