What it is to be prepared, though! Atlas, mon pauvre ami, you know the story of the witness who, when asked how far he stood from the spot where the deed was done, answered unhesitatingly—"Sixty-three feet seven inches!" "How, sir," cried the prosecuting lawyer—"how can you possibly pretend to such accuracy?" "Well," returned the man in the box, "you see I thought some d——d fool would be sure to ask me, and so I measured."
'Arry in the Grosvenor
Atlas—In spite of the Kyrle Society, I don't appeal to the middle classes; for I read in the Times that 'Arry won't have me. I am ranked with the caviare of his betters, and add not to the relish of his winkles and tea.
Also, why troubles he about many things?
But, alas! as is aptly remarked in one of the weekly papers, The World, May 17, 1882. "'Arry has taken to going to the Grosvenor;" and "ce n'est pas tout que d'être honnête," he says, lightly paraphrasing Alfred de Musset, "il faut être joli garçon!"
And so he blooms into an æsthete of his own order. To have seen him, O my wise Atlas, was my privilege and my misery; for he stood under one of my own "harmonies"—already with difficulty gasping its gentle breath—himself an amazing "arrangement" in strong mustard-and-cress, with bird's-eye belcher of Reckitt's blue; and then and there destroyed absolutely, unintentionally, and once for all, my year's work!
Atlas, shall these things be?
