ch can maintain, it was hard to realise that he
and the Matt Kelson of a year ago were the same. A year ago he had
been a poor, underpaid, ill nourished pen-driver, with all the odious
marks of a pen-driver's servility thick upon him. It was true he had
been fastidious as to his appearance--that is to say, as fastidious as
any one can be, who has to buy clothes ready made and can only afford
to pay a few dollars for them; that he had sacrificed meals to wear
white shirts--boiled shirts as one called them in San Francisco--and
to get his things got up decently at a respectable laundry; but his
teeth in those days did not receive the attention they ought to have
received (he could not afford a dentist), the tobacco he smoked was
often offensive; and there were to be found in him sundry other
details that one usually finds in clerks, and in most other people who
literally have to fight for a living.

But now, all that was changed. Kelson was rich. He bought his suits at
Poole's, his hats at Christie's, his boots in Regent Street. He
patronized a dentist in Cavendish Square, and a manicurist in Bond
Street. He belonged to a crack club in Pall Mall, and never smoked
anything but the most expensive cigars. His ambition had been speedily
realized. He had passionately longed to be a fop--he was one. The only
thing that troubled him, was that he could not be an aristocrat at the
same time. But, after all, what did that matter? The girls looked at
him all the same, and that was all he wanted. He worshipped, he
adored, pretty girls; and he was most anxious that they should adore
him.

Consequently, his first thought, when he saw Lilian Rosenberg's name
on the form the commissionaire presented him, was "Is she pretty?" And
the first thing he said to himself directly the door opened to admit
her was, "By Jove! she is."

Then he assumed an air more suited to a partner in a big London firm,
and flourishing a richly bejewelled hand, said "Pray take a seat,
madam. What can I do for you?"

"I want you to tell me the meaning of these verses," Lilian Rosenberg
said, handing him two sheets of foolscap and then sitting down. "They
were suggested to me in my sleep--in other words, I dreamed them."

"You dreamed them, did you!" Kelson said, noticing with approval that
the girl had well-kept white hands, and that her clothes, though not
particularly expensive, were _chic_, and up-to-date. "Do you want me
only to interpret this poem, or sh