oar
of this fun (what word else shall describe it?) the man's intellect is
as clear as gold sand under a river. Such wit and such truth, and, at
times, such a flood of quick eloquence! All now are listeners,--silent,
save in applause.

And Leonard listened too. Not, as he would some nights ago, in innocent
unquestioning delight. No; his mind has passed through great sorrow,
great passion, and it comes out unsettled, inquiring, eager, brooding
over joy itself as over a problem. And the drink circulates, and faces
change; and there are gabbling and babbling; and Burley's head sinks
in his bosom, and he is silent. And up starts a wild, dissolute,
bacchanalian glee for seven voices. And the smoke-reek grows denser
and thicker, and the gaslight looks dizzy through the haze. And John
Burley's eyes reel.

Look again at the Dutch clock. Two hours have gone. John Burley has
broken out again from his silence, his voice thick and husky, and his
laugh cracked; and he talks, O ye gods! such rubbish and ribaldry; and
the listeners roar aloud, and think it finer than before. And Leonard,
who had hitherto been measuring himself in his mind against the giant,
and saying inly, "He soars out of my reach," finds the giant shrink
smaller and smaller, and saith to himself, "He is but of man's common
standard after all!"

Look again at the Dutch clock. Three hours have passed. Is John Burley
now of man's common standard? Man himself seems to have vanished from
the scene,--his soul stolen from him, his form gone away with the fumes
of the smoke, and the nauseous steam from that fiery bowl. And Leonard
looked round, and saw but the swine of Circe,--some on the floor, some
staggering against the walls, some hugging each other on the tables,
some fighting, some bawling, some weeping. The divine spark had fled
from the human face; the Beast is everywhere growing more and more out
of the thing that had been Man. And John Burley, still unconquered, but
clean lost to his senses, fancies himself a preacher, and drawls forth
the most lugubrious sermon upon the brevity of life that mortal ever
beard, accompanied with unctuous sobs; and now and then in the midst of
balderdash gleams out a gorgeous sentence, that Jeremy Taylor might have
envied, drivelling away again into a cadence below the rhetoric of
a Muggletonian. And the waiters choked up the doorway, listening and
laughing, and prepared to call cabs and coaches; and suddenly some one
turned off