e, in old
capitals, on a daintily covered volume in a book-stand. I had little
time or inclination for reading fiction; my days were busy ones, and
my nights were spent with law books. But I bought the volume out of
curiosity, wondering the while whether he could have written it. I was
soon set at rest, for the dedication was to a young woman of whom I had
often heard him speak. The volume was a collection of short stories.
On these I did not feel myself competent to sit in judgment, for my
personal taste in fiction, if I could be said to have had any, took
another turn. The stories dealt mainly with the affairs of aristocratic
young men and aristocratic young women, and were differentiated to fit
situations only met with in that society which does not have to send
descriptions of its functions to the newspapers. The stories did not
seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing
moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom
they were aimed. They left with me the impression of a well-delivered
stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows
on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.
Their charm to me lay in the manner of the telling, the style, which I
am forced to admit was delightful.

But the book I had bought was a success, a great success, if the
newspapers and the reports of the sales were to be trusted. I read the
criticisms out of curiosity more than any other prompting, and no two of
them were alike: they veered from extreme negative to extreme positive.
I have to confess that it gratified me not a little to find the
negatives for the most part of my poor way of thinking. The positives,
on the other hand, declared the gifted young author to have found a
manner of treatment of social life entirely new. Other critics still
insisted it was social ridicule: but if this were so, the satire was too
delicate for ordinary detection.

However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At
the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence. He
at once became the hero of the young women of the country from Portland,
Maine, to Portland, Oregon, many of whom wrote him letters and asked
him for his photograph. He was asked to tell what he really meant by
the vague endings of this or that story. And then I began to hear rumors
that his head was turning. These I discredited, of course. If true, I
thoug