"My noble, modest boy! So this was why you were so embarrassed before! But why not have told me that you were Fladpick?"
"Because I wanted you to love me for myself alone."
She fell into his arms.
"Frank—Frank—Fladpick, my own, my English Shakespeare," she sobbed ecstatically.
At the next meeting of the Mutual Depreciation Society, a bombshell in a stamped envelope was handed to Mr. Andrew Mackay. He tore open the envelope and the explosion followed—as follows:
"Gentlemen,
"I hereby beg to tender the resignation of my membership in your valued Society, as well as to anticipate your objections to my retaining the post of legal adviser I have the honor to hold. I am about to marry—the cynic will say I am laying the foundation of a Mutual Depreciation Society of my own. But this is not the reason of my retirement. That is to be sought in my having accepted the position of the English Shakespeare which you were good enough to open up for me. It would be a pity to let the pedestal stand empty. From the various excerpts you were kind enough to invent, especially from the copious extracts in Mr. Mackay's articles, I have been able to piece together a considerable body of poetic work, and by carefully collecting every existing fragment, and studying the most authoritative expositions of my aims and methods, I have constructed several dramas, much as Professor Owen re-constructed the mastodon from the bones that were extant. As you know I had never written a line in my life before, but by the copious aid of your excellent and genuinely helpful criticism I was enabled to get along without much difficulty. I find that to write blank verse you have only to invert the order of the words and keep on your guard against rhyme. You may be interested to know that the last line in the last tragedy is:
'Coffined in English yew he sleeps in peace.'
When written, I got my dramas privately printed with a Tartary trademark, after which I smudged the book and sold the copyright to Makemillion & Co. for ten thousand pounds. Needless to say I shall never write another book. In taking leave of you I cannot help feeling that, if I owe you some gratitude for the lofty pinnacle to which you have raised me, you are also not unindebted to me for finally removing the shadow of apprehension that must have dogged you in your sober moments—I mean the fear of being found out. Mr. Andrew Mackay, in particular, as the most deeply committed, I feel owes me what he can never hope to repay for my gallantry in filling the mantle designed by him, whose emptiness might one day have been exposed, to his immediate downfall.
"I am, gentlemen,
"Your most sincere and humble Depreciator,
"The English Shakespeare."
CHAPTER XIV.
THE OLD YOUNG WOMAN AND THE NEW.