I never read such brilliant articles as he wrote nightly—never, until I came upon the same articles in old files of the London newspapers, where they had originally appeared. The original articles from which his were copied verbatim were, I admit, quite as brilliant as his.
His modus operandi was simplicity itself. He kept in his desk a series of large books for newspaper cuttings, and these were packed with articles on all manner of subjects, clipped from the best newspapers. Every day he spent an hour making these extracts, by the aid of a pot of paste, and indexing them on the most perfect system of double entry that could be conceived.
At night I frequently came down to my office and found that he had written two columns of the most delightful essays. One might, perhaps, be on the subject of Moresco-Gothic Architecture and its influence on the genius of Velasquez, another on Battueshooting and the Acclimatisation of the Bird of Paradise in English coverts; but both were treated with equal grace. That such erudition and originality should be associated with cloth gloves astonished me. One day, however, the man wrote a column upon the decoration of one of the courts of the Alhambra, and a more picturesque article I never read—up to a certain point; and this point was reached when he commenced a new paragraph as follows:—
“Alas! that so lovely a piece of work should have fallen a prey to the devastating element that laid the whole structure in ruins, and eclipsed the gaiety, if not of nations, at any rate of the people of London, who were wont to resort nightly to this Thespian temple of Leicester Square, feeling certain that under the liberal management of its enterprising entrepreneur some brilliant stage spectacle would be brought before their eyes. Now, however, that the company for the restoration of the building has been successfully floated, we may hope for a revival of the ancient glories of the Alhambra.”
I inquired casually of the perpetrator of the article if he had ever heard of the Alhambra?
“Why, I wrote of it yesterday,” he said.
“I’ve been in it; it’s in Leicester Square.”
“Did you ever hear of another Alhambra?”
I asked blandly.
“Yes; there’s one in Glasgow.”