reference to which made all other allusions to him quite clear. It
was easy to speak of Mr. Van Torp as the central figure in a _cause
celebre_: newspapers love the French language the more as they
understand it the less; just as the gentle amateur in literature tries
to hide his cloven hoof under the thin elegance of italics.

Particular stress was laid upon the millionaire's dreadful hypocrisy.
He taught in the Sunday Schools at Nickelville, the big village which
had sprung up at his will and which was the headquarters of his
sanctimonious wickedness. He was compared to Solomon, not for his
wisdom, but on account of his domestic arrangements. He was indeed a
father to his flock. It was a touching sight to see the little ones
gathered round the knees of this great and good man, and to note
how an unconscious and affectionate imitation reflected his face
in theirs. It was true that there was another side to this truly
patriarchal picture. In a city of the Far West, wrote an eloquent
paragraph writer, a pale face, once divinely beautiful, was often seen
at the barred window of a madhouse, and eyes that had once looked too
tenderly into those of the Nickelville Solomon stared wildly at
the palm-trees in the asylum grounds. This paragraph was rich in
sentiment.

There were a good many mentions of the explosion in New York, too, and
hints, dark, but uncommonly straight, that the great Sunday School
teacher had been the author and stage-manager of an awful comedy
designed expressly to injure a firm of contractors against whom he had
a standing grudge. In proof of the assertion, the story went on to say
that he had written four hours before the 'accident' happened to give
warning of it to the young lady whom he was about to marry. She was
a neurasthenic young lady, and in spite of the warning she died very
suddenly at the theatre from shock immediately after the explosion,
and his note was found on her dressing-table when she was brought home
dead. Clearly, if the explosion had not been his work, and if he had
been informed of it beforehand, he would have warned the police and
the Department of Public Works at the same time. The young lady's
untimely death had not prevented him from sailing for Europe three or
four days later, and on the trip he had actually occupied alone the
same 'thousand dollar suite' which he had previously engaged for
himself and his bride. From this detail the public might form some
idea of the Nic