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"Yes, ma chere. They asked my husband and me to dinner, and told

us the sauce at that dinner cost a hundred pounds," Princess

Myakaya said, speaking loudly, and conscious everyone was

listening; "and very nasty sauce it was, some green mess. We had

to ask them, and I made them sauce for eighteen pence, and

everybody was very much pleased with it. I can't run to

hundred-pound sauces."

"She's unique!" said the lady of the house.

"Marvelous!" said someone.

The sensation produced by Princess Myakaya's speeches was always

unique, and the secret of the sensation she produced lay in the

fact that though she spoke not always appropriately, as now, she

said simple things with some sense in them. In the society in

which she lived such plain statements produced the effect of the

wittiest epigram. Princess Myakaya could never see why it had

that effect, but she knew it had, and took advantage of it.