critics, doubtless regarded Ling
Hop as an impudent charlatan; but Boston in its most restricted and
exclusive sense looked at his work with interest and respect, though
sadly without humor. The guest stood silently before the portrait,
scanning it earnestly, almost with anxiety, blinking his almond eyes
behind his shell-rimmed glasses. As, however, he did not know enough
about the technique of painting to offer a sensible appreciation, he
wisely confined himself to a very few vaguely eulogistic monosyllables,
which seemed greatly to gratify the artist.

"Ah," said Ling Hop, "delicate--delicate!" the adjective being pronounced
with a haunting repetition of its most melodious letter. Years of more
or less familiarity with the English language had not been able to efface
his racial penchant for the labial. One might naturally suppose that to
compress a native alphabet of some one hundred and twenty-six letters
into one of twenty-six would result in much confusion and some
inexplicable preferences, but no one has ever been able to point out why
the functions of the extra hundred should have to be assumed by the
letter "l" alone.

But to Pelgram the vague liquid sound fell dulcetly on the ear, and by
Miss Long and Miss Heatherton no flaw in this art criticism could be
discerned. And the artist, glancing about him, saw with gratification
that, in addition to the two young ladies, there had by some vague
current of motion been swept into his immediate vicinity human flotsam to
the extent of perhaps half a dozen irresponsible souls, ignorant that
their immediate fate was to be not guests, but auditors.

"Do you feel that? I strove for it," he said in a clear, penetrating
voice, calculated to attract the attention, if not the interest, of those
even outside the charmed though widening circle. "I strove for just
that, feeling that here, above all, it was the one desideratum. At times
I feared--" he turned to the impassive Mongolian a puckered
forehead--"that I might be sacrificing somewhat of the virile. But no!
I said--surely I can sacrifice all things, all considerations, save one."

"You were right," said Ling Hop, cryptically, feeling that he was called
upon to say something, but still with that faint adumbration of the
inevitable letter.

"In these days of strange, wild gods, in whose temples the heathen riot
in flames and flares and orgies of color, it seems to me incumbent upon
the saner among the craft to