"Excellent," he said. "My dear sir, you compel my admiration; you are altogether so different a person from the simpleton who lies shaking in his bed on the floor below. You have brain power. My worthy landlord and partner would have as well fulfilled his destiny had he been a mouse. The changes that have taken place! Ah, what changes have I not seen, say, in the course of the last thousand years!" And here he laughed loud and long. "But proceed, my dear sir, proceed. How do these changes affect me in the matter we are now considering?"
"There was a time----"
"Really, like the beginning of a fairy story," he interposed.
"When public opinion was of small weight, whereas now it is the most important factor in social affairs."
"Lucidly put. I listen to you with interest."
"The penny newspaper," I observed sagely, "is a mighty engine."
"You speak with the wisdom of a platitudinarian."
"It enlists itself in the cause of justice, and frequently plays, to a serviceable end, the part of a detective. You may remember the case of Leroy."
"A poor bungler, a very poor bungler. A small mind, my dear sir, eaten up by self-conceit of the lowest and meanest quality."
"For a long time Leroy evaded justice, but at length he was arrested. A popular newspaper published in its columns a portrait of the wretch----"