let me do a column of answers to correspondents.'

'Cosmetics? Fashions? Cookery?'

'I'm not so versatile as all that, unfortunately. No, the general
information column. "Will you be so good as to inform me, through the
medium of your invaluable paper, what was the exact area devastated
by the Great Fire of London?"--that kind of thing, you know.
Hopburn--that's the fellow's name--tells me that his predecessor always
called the paper Chat-moss, because of the frightful difficulty he had
in filling it up each week. By-the-bye, what a capital column that is of
yours in Will-o'-the-Wisp. I know nothing like it in English journalism;
upon my word I don't!'

'Glad you like it. Some people are less fervent in their admiration.'

Jasper recounted the affair which had just been under discussion in the
office.

'It may cost a couple of thousands, but the advertisement is worth that,
Patwin thinks. Barlow is delighted; he wouldn't mind paying double the
money to make those people a laughing-stock for a week or two.'

They issued into the street, and walked on together; Milvain, with
his keen eye and critical smile, unmistakably the modern young man who
cultivates the art of success; his companion of a less pronounced type,
but distinguished by a certain subtlety of countenance, a blending of
the sentimental and the shrewd.

'Of course you know all about the Reardons?' said Whelpdale.

'Haven't seen or heard of them lately. What is it?'

'Then you don't know that they have parted?'

'Parted?'

'I only heard about it last night; Biffen told me. Reardon is doing
clerk's work at a hospital somewhere in the East-end, and his wife has
gone to live at her mother's house.'

'Ho, ho!' exclaimed Jasper, thoughtfully. 'Then the crash has come. Of
course I knew it must be impending. I'm sorry for Reardon.'

'I'm sorry for his wife.'

'Trust you for thinking of women first, Whelpdale.'

'It's in an honourable way, my dear fellow. I'm a slave to women, true,
but all in an honourable way. After that last adventure of mine most
men would be savage and cynical, wouldn't they, now? I'm nothing of the
kind. I think no worse of women--not a bit. I reverence them as much as
ever. There must be a good deal of magnanimity in me, don't you think?'

Jasper laughed unrestrainedly.

'But it's the simple truth,' pursued the other. 'You should have
seen the letter I wrote to that girl at Birmingham--all charity and
forgiveness. I meant i