The bat is not what naturalists would call a bird, but I feel sure Davis thought it was. For his second venture was a weekly publication called _The Bat_. In his earlier paper he had gone out of his way to attack Society people; in the _Bat_ he found a savage delight in crucifying Stage folk. In this direction he probably went as far as any man ever _did_ go without suffering from reprisals. He was less fortunate when he turned his attention to the leading men on the Turf. Lord Durham, being advised that the _Bat_ had gone beyond the limits of fair criticism, took criminal proceedings. The redoubtable James, having a lawyer’s notion of what the upshot would be, and a nice appreciation of the advantages of liberty, repaired to France, where he remained in exile for several years. George Lewis, indeed, boasted that as long as he (Lewis) lived Jimmy should never return to his native land. And when two Jews feel like that about each other, you may safely anticipate trouble. But Mrs. Davis brought her personal influence to bear on Lord Durham, and, the Hatton Garden threat notwithstanding, “Jimmy,” who had got as far as Boulogne, was permitted to return to London—absent from which centre of activity he was never really happy. Some few years before his death Davis founded yet another paper. This time he combined in his title his taste both for ornithology and for mythology. He called his paper _The Phœnix_. He now showed his pristine smartness without his old-time scurrility. The paper was, indeed, very well done—bright, original, and mordantly humorous. But the day for that sort of thing was closing in. There was no longer any public for six-pennyworth of smartness. Seeing this, the accommodating proprietor reduced his price to twopence; but even at that figure his smartness proved unsaleable. At the other end of the town, however, he was making money “hand over fist,” as the vulgar saying has it. His “Floradora” was running at a West End theatre and playing to crowded houses. I suspect that a considerable amount of the money which he made out of comic opera was lost in comic journalism. I wrote for Davis on all his papers, and although he usually owed me a balance at the moment of the inevitable “smash-up” or “dry-up,” that balance was so inconsiderable in each case, as compared with the sums that I had taken from him, that I never thought of pressing him. Davis was essentially a good “pal.” He has followed his papers and his other enterprises into the grave. May the turf lie light on him! The Turf pressed him rather heavily here.