A Social Meteor — page 205: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

3 A SOCIAL METEOR. 195 and would sit for hours listening to them, and leading them slyly on to gossip, until their tongues got wagging in a manner that would have surprised even themselves, had they realized the mischief they were making. Georgie used to scold him for this, but he would immediately assume an exprcssion of injured innocence, and vow that he did no such thing, and that moreover, he never in his life had come across such a set of scandal-mongers as met weekly at her house. Of course she would wax highly indignant at his impertt- nence, and threaten to throw him out of the house by the ears, the next time he called. Mrs. Clarke, who was a good-hearted, fussy old soul, was very fond of him, and never thought of making a change anywhere about the house until she had first asked his opinion on the subject. | “You know Peter is just like a woman around,” she would observe, “and I declare he knows more about my household affairs than I do myself.” On the day in question he lingered until after everyone else was gone, and then accepted Mrs. Gomichoo SS (E@)