all those distinguished
comforts and elegancies proper to a success that may any moment be
interviewed. Needless to say, the walls had been decorated by Mr.
Whistler, and there was not a piece of furniture in the room that had not
belonged to this or that poet deceased. Priceless autograph portraits of
all the leading actors and actresses littered the mantelshelf with a
reckless prodigality; the two or three choice etchings were, of course, no
less conspicuously inscribed to their illustrious confrere by the
artists--naturally, the very latest hatched in Paris. There was hardly a
volume in the elegant Chippendale bookcases not similarly inscribed. Mr.
Rondel would as soon have thought of buying a book as of paying for a
stall. To the eye of imagination, therefore, there was not an article in
the room which did not carry a little trumpet to the distinguished poet's
honour and glory. Hidden from view in his buhl cabinet, but none the less
vivid to his sensitive egoism, were those tenderer trophies of his power,
spoils of the chase, which the adoring feminine had offered up at his
shrine: all his love-letters sorted in periods, neatly ribboned and snugly
ensconced in various sandalwood niches--much as urns are ranged at the
Crematorium, Woking--with locks of hair of many hues. He loved most to
think of those letters in which the women had gladly sought a spiritual
suttee, and begged him to cement the stones of his temple of fame with
the blood of their devoted hearts. To have had a share in building so
distinguished a life--that was enough for them! They asked no such
inconvenient reward as marriage: indeed, one or two of them had already
obtained that boon from others. To serve their purpose, and then, if it
must be, to be forgotten, or--wild hope--to be embalmed in a sonnet
sequence: that was reward enough.

In the midst of this silent and yet so eloquent orchestra, which from morn
to night was continually crying 'Glory, glory, glory' in the ear of the
self-enamoured poet, Hyacinth Rondel was sitting one evening. The last
post had brought him the above-mentioned leaves of the Romeike laurel, and
he sat in his easiest chair by the bright fire, adjusting them,
metaphorically, upon his high brow, a decanter at his right-hand and
cigarette smoke curling up from his left. At last he had drained all the
honey from the last paragraph, and, with rustling shining head, he turned
a sweeping triumphant gaze around his room. But, to