"I beg your pardon, madam," said Triplet, whose ideas of breeding, though speculative, were severe, "I forgot myself." Mabel looked at him, and colored, and slightly hesitated.

At last she said: "I'll be bound you came in such a hurry you forgot--you mustn't be angry with me--to have your dinner first!" For Triplet looked like an absurd wolf--all benevolence and starvation! "What divine intelligence!" thought Trip.

"How strange, madam," cried he, "you have hit it! This accounts, at once, for a craving I feel.

Now you remind me, I recollect carving for others, I did forget to remember myself.

Not that I need have forgot it to-day, madam; but, being used to forget it, I did not remember not to forget it to-day, madam, that was all." And the author of this intelligent account smiled very, very, very absurdly.
She poured him out a glass of wine.