s many prominent people as possible were mentioned by
name and a sauce of general absurdity could be employed to cover and, if
need be, excuse particular libels. So he managed to relieve himself and
get along. Harman was just on the border-line of the class he considered
himself free to revile. Harman was an outsider and aggressive and new,
one of Mrs. Blapton's knights, and of no particular weight in society;
so far he was fair game; but he was not so new as he had been, he was
almost through with the running of the Toomer gauntlet, he had a
tremendous lot of money and it was with a modified vehemence that the
distinguished journalist and humourist expatiated on his offensiveness
to Mr. Brumley. He talked in a gentle, rather weary voice, that came
through a moustache like a fringe of light tobacco.

"Personally I've little against the man. A wife too young for him and
jealously guarded, but that's all to his credit. Nowadays. If it wasn't
for his blatancy in his business.... And the knighthood.... I suppose he
can't resist taking anything he can get. Bread made by wholesale and
distributed like a newspaper can't, I feel, be the same thing as the
loaf of your honest old-fashioned baker--each loaf made with individual
attention--out of wholesome English flour--hand-ground--with a personal
touch for each customer. Still, everything drifts on to these
hugger-mugger large enterprises; Chicago spreads over the world. One
thing goes after another, tobacco, tea, bacon, drugs, bookselling.
Decent homes destroyed right and left. Not Harman's affair, I suppose.
The girls in his London tea-shops have of course to supplement their
wages by prostitution--probably don't object to that nowadays
considering the novels we have. And his effect on the landscape----Until
they stopped him he was trying very hard to get Shakespear's Cliff at
Dover. He did for a time have the Toad Rock at Tunbridge.
Still"--something like a sigh escaped from Toomer,--"his private life
appears to be almost as blameless as anybody's can be.... Thanks no
doubt to his defective health. I made the most careful enquiries when
his knighthood was first discussed. Someone has to. Before his marriage
he seems to have lived at home with his mother. At Highbury. Very
quietly and inexpensively."

"Then he's not the conventional vulgarian?"

"Much more of the Rockefeller type. Bad health, great concentration,
organizing power.... Applied of course to a narrower range of