"Go on," said Mr. Labouchere.
"Well, you have now got fame, honour, everything for which it is legitimate in man to strive.
"So far back as I can remember, you have had the world laughing with you. But you know what human nature is.
"There comes a morning to all wits, when their public wakes to find them bores. The fault may not be the wit's, but what of that? The result is the same.
"Wits are like theatres: they may have a glorious youth and prime, but their old age is dismal. To the outsider, like myself, signs are not wanting—to continue the figure of speech—that you have put on your last successful piece.
"Can you say candidly that your last Christmas number was more than a reflection of its predecessors, or that your remarks this year on the Derby day took as they did the year before?
"Surely the most incisive of our satirists will not let himself degenerate into an illustration of Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory that man repeats himself, like history.
"Mr. Labouchere, sir, to those of us who have grown up in your inspiration it would indeed be pitiful if this were so."
Andrew's host turned nervously in his chair.
Probably he wished that he had gone to church now.