t
Set faces mutely watching
From cushioned corner or from curtained nook;
Hands that about old ears attentive crook,
The latest scandal catching.

Cold rock-hewn countenances, shaven clean,
Hard lips, and eyes alert with strength and spleen;
Visages vain and vapid,
All wreathed with the conventional bland smile
That covers weary scorn or watchful guile,
Shift here in sequence rapid.

"Why is this well-dressed mob thus mustered here?"
I asked my guide. "On every face a sneer
Curls--when it is not smirking.
Scorn of each other seems the one sole thing
In which they sympathise, the asp whose sting
Midst flowery talk is lurking."

"Friend, mutual mockery, masked as mutual praise,
Is a great social bond in these strange days.
ROCHEFOUCAULD here might gather
Material for new maxims keen and cold.
They meet, these _convives_, if the truth be told,
For boredom and bland blather.

"Royston's Reception,--ah! yes; beastly bore!
But must drop in for half an hour, no more.
The usual cram,--one knows it.
Big pudding with a few peculiar "plums".
Everyone kicks, but everybody comes.
Don't quite know how he does it!'

"So SNAGGS, the slangy cynic. See him there
With pouching shirt-front and disordered hair,
Talking to CRAMP the sturdy,
Irreverent R. A. And he,--that's JOYCE,
The shaggy swart Silenus, with a voice
Much like a hurdy-gurdy.

"You see him everywhere, though none knows why;
Every hand meets his grip, though every eye
Furtively hints abhorrence.
Society's a gridiron; fools to please,
Wise men must sometimes lie as ill at ease
As might a new St. Lawrence."

A buzz, a bustle! How the crowd makes way,
And parts in lines as on some pageant day!
'Tis the Great Man, none other,
"Bland, beaming, bowing quick to left and right;
One hour he'll deign to give from his brief night
To flattery, fuss and pother.

"Though the whole mob does homage, more than half
Behind their hands indulge in sorrel chaff,
And venomous invective.
And he, the hard-faced Cleon with his ring
Of minor satellites? Could glances sting
_His_ were not ineffective!

"Crouched in yon corner, huddled chin to knees,
Like some old lion sore and ill at ease
Left foodless in the jungle,
Sits GRUMPER, growling oaths beneath his breath
At CLEON, who--to him--