rs just as
eager to predict the downfall of the Government as Sir John Pynsent had
been; but he was not in the mood to listen to a number of young men all
of the same mind, all of-doubtful intellectual calibre, and all sure to
say what he had heard a dozen times already. So he passed on to the
billiard-room, and finding that a pool was just beginning, took a ball
and played.

That served to pass the time until six o'clock, when he went upstairs
and read the evening papers for an hour; and at seven he had his dinner
and a bottle of wine. Meanwhile he had met two or three friends, with
whom he kept up a lively conversation on the events of the day, seasoned
by many a pungent joke, and fatal (for the moment) to many a reputation.
It is a habit fostered by club life--as, no doubt, it is fostered in the
life of the drawing-room, for neither sex is exempt--to sacrifice the
repute of one's absent acquaintance with a light heart, not in malice,
but more as a parrot bites the finger that feeds it, in sport, or even
in affection. If we backbite our friends, we give them free permission
to backbite us, or we know that they do it, which amounts to pretty much
the same thing. The biting may not be very severe, and, as a rule, it
leaves no scars; but, of course, there are exceptions to the rule.

The secret history of almost every man or woman who has mixed at all in
polite society is sure to be known by some one or other in the clubs and
drawing-rooms. If there is anything to your discredit in your past life,
anything which you would blot out if you could with rivers of repentance
or expiation, you may be pretty sure that at some time, when you might
least expect it, this thing has been, or will be, the subject of
discourse and dissection amongst your friends. It may not be told in an
injurious or exaggerated manner, and it may not travel far; but none the
less do you walk on treacherous shale, which may give way at any moment
under your feet. The art of living, if you are afraid of the passing of
your secret from the few who know to the many who welcome a new scandal,
is to go on walking with the light and confident step of youth, never so
much as quailing in your own mind at the thought that the ground may
crumble beneath you--that you may go home some fine day, or to your
club, or to Lady Jane's five o'clock tea, and be confronted by the
grinning skeleton on whom you had so carefully turned your keys and shot
your bolts.

No d