BUT WHO DESPISES SHODDY AND RESPECTS GENIUS.

Representatives of Literature, Art, and Science.

Thomas Carlyle,Charles Darwin,
Alfred Tennyson,Professor Huxley,
John Ruskin,Frederick Leighton, R.A.,
Algernon Swinburne,Cornelius Jagenal, and
George Augustus Sala,Humphrey Jagenal,
WITH CAPTAIN LADDS, THE HON. RONALD DUNQUERQUE,
AND GILEAD P. BECK.

After this preamble, which occupied a whole side of the double card, followed the menu itself.

I unwillingly suppress this. There are weaker brethren who might on reading it feel dissatisfied with the plain lamb and rhubarb-tart of the sweet spring season. As a present dignitary of the Church, now a colonial bishop, once a curate, observed to me many years ago, à propos of thirst, university reminiscences, a neighbouring public-house, a craving for tobacco, and the fear of being observed, "These weaker brethren are a great nuisance."

Let it suffice that at the Langham they still speak of Gilead Beck's great dinner with tears in their eyes. I believe a copy of the green and gold card is framed, and hung in the office so as to catch the eye of poorer men when they are ordering dinners. It makes those of lower nature feel envious, and even takes the conceit out of the nobler kind.

Gilead Beck, dressed for the banquet, was nervous and restless. It seemed as if, for the first time, his wealth was about to bring him something worth having. His face, always grave, was as solemn as if he were fixing it for his own funeral. From time to time he drew a paper from his pocket and read it over. Then he replaced it, and with lips and arms went through the action of speaking. It was his speech of the evening, which he had carefully written and imperfectly committed to memory. Like a famous American lawyer, the attitude he assumed was to stand bent a little forward, the feet together, the left hand hanging loosely at his side, while he brandished the right above his head.

In this attitude he was surprised by the Twins, who came a quarter of an hour before the time. They were dressed with great care, having each the sweetest little eighteenpenny bouquet, bought from the little shop at the right hand of the Market as you go in, where the young lady makes it up before your eyes, sticks the wire into it, and pins it at your buttonhole with her own fair hands. Each brother in turn winked at her during the operation. A harmless wink, but it suggested no end of possible devilries should these two young gentlemen of fifty find themselves loose upon the town. Those who saw it thought of Mohocks, and praised the Lord for the new police.

They both looked very nice; they entered with a jaunty step, a careless backward toss of the head, parted lips, and bright eyes which faced fearlessly a critical but reverent world. Nothing but the crow's-feet showed that the first glow of youth was over; nothing but a few streaks of grey in Humphrey's beard and in Cornelius's hair showed that they were nearing the Indian summer of life. Mr. Beck, seeing them enter so fresh, so bright, and so beaming, was more than ever puzzled at their age. He was waiting for them in a nervous and rather excitable state of mind, as becomes one who is about to find himself face to face with the greatest men of his time.

"You, gentlemen," he said, "will sit near me, one each side, if you will be so kind, just to lend a helping-hand to the talk when it flags. Phew! it will be a rasper, the talk of to-day. I've read all their works, if I can only remember them, and I bought the History of English Literature yesterday to get a grip of the hull subject. No use. I haven't got farther than Chaucer. Do you think they can talk about Chaucer? He wrote the Canterbury Tales."