kles in the hollows between his eyes and the fresh
crimson of his cheeks; and the eyes were sad; they were very sad. Had he
stood erect and looked perpendicularly down, he would have perceived,
not his slippers, but a protuberant button of the dressing-gown.
Understand me: I conceal nothing; I admit the figures written in the
measurement-book of his tailor. He was fifty. Yet, like most men of
fifty, he was still very young, and, like most bachelors of fifty, he
was rather helpless. He was quite sure that he had not had the best of
luck. If he had excavated his soul he would have discovered somewhere in
its deeps a wistful, appealing desire to be taken care of, to be
sheltered from the inconveniences and harshness of the world. But he
would not have admitted the discovery. A bachelor of fifty cannot be
expected to admit that he resembles a girl of nineteen. Nevertheless it
is a strange fact that the resemblance between the heart of an
experienced, adventurous bachelor of fifty and the simple heart of a
girl of nineteen is stronger than girls of nineteen imagine; especially
when the bachelor of fifty is sitting solitary and unfriended at two
o'clock in the night, in the forlorn atmosphere of a house that has
outlived its hopes. Bachelors of fifty alone will comprehend me.

It has never been decided what young girls do meditate upon when they
meditate; young girls themselves cannot decide. As a rule the lonely
fancies of middle-aged bachelors are scarcely less amenable to
definition. But the case of the inhabitant of the puce dressing-gown was
an exception to the rule. He knew, and he could have said, precisely
what he was thinking about. In that sad hour and place, his melancholy
thoughts were centred upon the resplendent, unique success in life of a
gifted and glorious being known to nations and newspapers as Priam
Farll.

_Riches and Renown_

In the days when the New Gallery was new, a picture, signed by the
unknown name of Priam Farll, was exhibited there, and aroused such
terrific interest that for several months no conversation among cultured
persons was regarded as complete without some reference to it. That the
artist was a very great painter indeed was admitted by every one; the
only question which cultured persons felt it their duty to settle was
whether he was the greatest painter that ever lived or merely the
greatest painter since Velasquez. Cultured persons might have continued
to discuss that nice poi