CHAPTERPAGE
I.[Yardly Gobion opens his Letters]1
II.[Scott is Lonely]18
III.[Initiation]39
IV.[The Campaign]62
V.[A Psychological Moment]83
VI.[The Coup]103
VII.[The Consolations of Mrs. Ebbage; with some Account of the Rev. Peter Belper]129
VIII.[The Final Pose]147
IX.[Twenty Years After]157

THE HYPOCRITE

CHAPTER I.

YARDLY GOBION OPENS HIS LETTERS.

"I am thinking of writing my impressions, binding them in red leather, with a fleur-de-lys stamped in the corner, and distributing them among my friends," said the youth with the large tie.

"My good fool," said the President of the Union, who sat by the fire, "you must remember that most of us know you are a humbug."

"Quite so, but I'm not going to do it for the journalistic set. Don't you know that, owing to my youthful appearance and earnest eyes, I have an admiring circle of people who worship me as their god—good, healthy, red people, who like moonlight in the quad, and read leading articles? It is very amusing. I wear a great mass of hair, and look at them with far-away eyes instinct with intellectual pain; and sometimes when we get very solemn, the tears rise slowly, and I talk in clear tones of effort, of will—the toil, the struggle, the Glorious Reward! They absolutely love me, and I live on them, borrow their allowances, drink their whiskey—in short, rook them largely all round."

"It is a good thing," said a Merton man, whom they called the Prophet, "that you have an ark of refuge, where there is no necessity to pose, and where you can freely behave like the scoundrel you are; soul-scraping with earnest freshmen is doubtless profitable, but I should say it was wearing."

"That's the worst of it. I have to disguise the fact that I know you people, and write for The Dead Bird; it is horribly difficult. I find, though, that when I am just a little drunk I do it much better. One can look more spirituel, and play the game better all round. Unfortunately the entrances and exits require management. When one is leaning back in a padded armchair, it is easy to appear sober; but coming into a big room full of men, and picking one's way through them to get to the aforesaid chair, is very perilous work."