"But who," he asked, "is your _protege?_"
"His name," Mrs. Staggchase replied, "is Orin Stanton. He is a fellow
of the greatest talent, and he has worked his way"--
Rangely put up his hand in a gesture of impatience.
"I know the fellow," he said. "He made a thing he called _Hop Scotch_,
of which Fenton said the title was far too modest, since he'd not only
scotched the subject but killed it."
"One never knew Mr. Fenton to waste the chance of saying a good thing
simply for the sake of justice," Mrs. Staggchase observed, with
unabated good humor. "But you are to help us in the _Daily Observer_,
and there is to be no discussion about it. Since you know you are too
good-natured not to oblige me in the end, why should you not do it
gracefully and get the credit of being willing."
And then, being a wise woman, she disregarded Rangely's muttered
remonstrance and turned the conversation into a new channel.
IX
THIS IS NOT A BOON.
Othello; iii.--3.
If the old-time opinion that a woman whose name is a jest with men has
lost her claims to respect, Mrs. Amanda Welsh Sampson might be supposed
to have little ground for the inner anger she felt at the scantness of
the courtesy with which she was treated by Mr. Irons. That gentleman
was calling upon her in her tiny suite of rooms at the top of one of
those apartment hotels which stand upon the debatable ground between
the select regions of Back Bay and the scorned precincts of the South
End, and he was apparently as much at home as if the sofa upon which he
lounged were in his own dwelling.
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