Daniel Mayfield spoke with an air of conviction that had considerable influence upon his nephew. He went back to the reviews of _Dion_, in the hope of finding some clue to the writer in the opinions and speculations of the reviewers. In this he was disappointed. The reviewers told him no more than his Uncle Dan had told him. They judged the writer as Mr. Mayfield had judged him, from the evidence of the book; they had evidently no knowledge outside the book. The mystery of anonymous publication had been religiously preserved, and as the book had created some sensation at the time of its appearance, there had been considerable speculation as to the individuality of the writer. The result of all this speculation was limited to the following deductions: 1st. The writer of the book was a young man who had gone through the usual curriculum of a university education. 2nd. The style and manner of thinking were eminently Oxonian. 3rd. The writer was well acquainted with Continental life. 4th. He was as familiar with German literature as with the classics. 5th. His proclivities were aristocratic; his contempt for the masses supreme and undisguised. 6th. His philosophy was Epicurean; his gods the graceful divinities of Greece; his nature sensuous, selfish, but not altogether base. He was an ardent worshipper of the beautiful. He thirsted for woman’s love,--the pure, the true; but it was the purity and truth of earth’s primæval freedom for which he languished, rather than the divine sentiment allowed by Christian rule. Upon these points the reviewers were strong, and they had sufficient justification for their opinion. The book was pervaded by the personality of the writer. It was indeed a confession, an autobiographical record, in which the events and circumstances of actual life were doubtless altered and disguised, but a record which laid bare the heart and mind of the man. Eustace read the book at the British Museum, and persuaded his uncle to read it at the same place. He tried to obtain a copy of the story; but _Dion_ had long been out of print. The booksellers had only the faintest recollection of a book of that name, and of the fact that it had created some slight stir during the brief season of its popularity. “I’ll get you a copy of the book, sooner or later, if your heart is set upon it, lad,” said Daniel Mayfield. “You know what a habitual book-stall lounger I am, and how many times I have had my pocket picked while I have been dipping into one of the Neo-Platonists, or an Amsterdam edition of Hysminias and Hysmine, before a second-hand bookseller’s emporium. _Dion_ is just the sort of book to figure in a bookseller’s box of odd volumes--‘All these at twopence,’--and, depend upon it, I shall meet with the gentleman some day. I know a man who is very clever at picking up any out-of-the-way book I happen to want; and if you wish it, I’ll set him to work.”