Judging from the style in which some of them were written, concerning men notoriously wealthy, their filtration through Ely Place was an entirely necessary proceeding. When the victim was unlikely to resent attack or attempt reprisals, the onset was at times very warm indeed. Poor Hubert Jay Maurice was one of these latter. One never knew what the dapper gentleman’s real name was—probably Moses. He had been known as Mr. Jay and as Mr. Maurice. And he ended his days as Mr. Didcot, a music-hall agent, having succeeded in giving his only daughter in marriage to the cadet of a noble house. The Didcot article appeared during Christmas week, and ended with the pregnant sentence: “Indeed, this young man’s career has been so shameless that at this festive season of the year we will not ask our compositors to set it up in print.” The success of the _World_ once secured, the circulation went up by leaps and bounds, and Mr. Labouchere, quick to appreciate the effect of his own suggestion, and willing to secure for himself the profits to be made by exhibiting and denouncing the evil that is in the world, soon determined to run a paper of his own. This was _Truth_, the third in the triad of publications that made good a claim to the title of Society journals. Labouchere went to work very carefully and systematically in founding the journal which will always be associated with his name—a journal, it should be at once admitted, which, while it did much in the way of airing personal dislikes, did much more in ridding Society of pests and parasites, of swindlers and charlatans, than any other journal of our time. My friend Robert Williams was consulted concerning the founding of the new paper. And from him I used to hear how matters were progressing. From him, for example, I learned that Mr. Horace Voules, of the _Echo_, had accepted the position of manager to the new venture. Voules always reminded me of the description of another Mr. Vholes as described in “Bleak House.” You recall the passage, perhaps? “If you want common-sense, responsibility, respectability, all united—Vholes is _the_ man!” Williams was fond of telling a story of the interview between Labouchere and Voules at the time of the engagement. The story was _ben trovato_. But my own subsequent acquaintance with Mr. Voules convinced me that there was not any element of fact in it. The dialogue as reported by “Bobbos” ran thus: LABOUCHERE: “I understand, Mr. Voules, that, in dealing with the outside public, you are apt to be rather haughty in your manner?” VOULES: “Indeed!” LABOUCHERE: “Now, in your interviews with my little public, I desire that you will tone yourself down a little toward their level.” VOULES (_bridling_, _but dignified_): “Mr. Labouchere, ’aughty I never ham; but I ’ope I ’ave a proper pride.”