So the humorist with his arm in Noll’s, affectionately; and left Noll brooding at the threshold of his simple home....
Netherby spoke prophecy.
A month or two later, an article in a leading review, signed by Mr. Fosse, won some notice by its youthful daring, indiscretion, and invention—Noll sighed to see his own wits could be so shabbily clothed.
Noll took up the magazine by veriest chance at the club.
He read the sorry thing, and flung it upon the table; and, as he flung it down, Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre entered the room.
“Ah, Aubrey,” cried he to the languid poet, with loud voice that was ever pitched to carry his carefully wrought spontaneities to the listening world: “I am sorry to be late, but, for pleasant hours with Lady Persimmon, I could almost be content to appear ill-bred. She moves me—so few women move me.” He sat down beside the poet, and slapped the poetic leg giddily: “For a handsome woman one must neglect even a poet, eh? Ha-ha! even the handsomest and the chastest of them all love their squeeze. Not that I—you know—eh?”
“Tsh!” muttered Aubrey, who had been vainly attempting to check the flow of Myre’s conceit—“Baddlesmere, over there, is her cousin.”
Myre turned a dirty putty colour.
Noll got up from his chair and walked out of the club....
Bartholomew Doome rose languidly from a lounge: