odgier articles on Pauper Lunacy and Poor Law
Administration--and the same inherited sense of gentlemanly obligation
to do something for one's king and country as made my ancestors, whether
they liked it or not, clothe themselves in uncomfortable iron garments
and go about fighting other gentlemen similarly clad, to their own great
personal danger. At any rate, it complemented my work at St. Stephen's,
and doubtless contributed to a reputation in the House which I did
not gain through my oratory. I could therefore bring to editors the
stock-in-trade of a fairly accurate knowledge of current political
issues, an appreciation of personalities, and a philosophical subrident
estimate of the bubbles that are for ever rising on the political
surface. I found Finch of _The Universal Review_, James of _The Weekly_,
and one or two others more than willing to give me employment. I put my
pen also at the disposal of Raggles. It was as uplifting and about as
mechanical as tax-collecting; but it involved less physical exertion and
less unpleasant contact with my fellow creatures. I could also keep the
ends of my moustache waxed, which was a great consolation.

My sister Agatha commended my courage and energy, and Lola read my
articles with a glowing enthusiasm, which compensated for lack of exact
understanding; but I was not proud of my position. It is one thing
to stand at the top of a marble staircase and in a debonair, jesting
fashion to fling insincere convictions to a recipient world. It is
another to sell the same worthless commodity for money. I began, to my
curious discomfort, to suspect that life had a meaning after all.

CHAPTER XVIII

One day I had walked from Cadogan Gardens with a gadfly phrase of Lola's
tormenting my ears:

"You're not quite alive even yet."

I had spent most of the day over a weekly article for James's high-toned
periodical, using the same old shibboleths, proclaiming Gilead to be the
one place for balm, juggling with the same old sophistries, and proving
that Pope must have been out of his mind when he declared that an honest
man was the noblest work of God, seeing that nobler than the most honest
man was the disingenuous government held up to eulogy; and I had gone
tired, dispirited, out of conceit with myself to Lola for tea and
consolation. I had not been the merriest company. I had spoken gloomily
of the cosmos, and when Adolphus the Chow dog had walked down the room
in his hind legs, I