"'Most interesting speech,' she said. 'What I especially liked were your remarks about thou-ing. And what I want to know most is whether Caryatides were thou-ing one another?' "I was a little perplexed, and all that I could answer was: 'Their dimples did,' and this seemed to satisfy my American lady marvellously well. "Another lady asked me how many Muses we had, and on hearing that their number was nine, she was highly astonished. 'Only nine? Why in London there are mews in every second street. How strange!' "A third lady asked me what I meant by shoulders being a pedestal. Her shoulders, she was sure, were no pedestals, and she would not allow anyone to stand on them. She added, that she was aware of my having said that the shoulders were the pedestal of the Charites, but with her best intention she could not allow even charity to be extended to her shoulders. I smiled consent. "A fourth lady, whose name was Valley, but who was a mountain of otherwise rosy flesh, asked me what I had meant by maidens of Podagra? She was sure that young maids never suffered from that ugly disease. I told her that I really meant Chiragra. This satisfied her marvellously well. "During that time Phryne and Lais were the heroines of the evening, lionised by women, and courted by men. The women asked them all sorts of questions and seemed extraordinarily eager to be instructed. One of them, a brilliant duchess--(who had three secretaries providing her with the latest information about everything, the first preparing all the catch-words from A to G, the second from H to N, and the third from O to Z)--asked Phryne whether she would not permit her to convince herself of the accuracy of the estimate in which Hyperides held the exquisite form of Phryne's bosom. (A middle-class woman thereupon asked Mr Gox, M.P., what Hyperides meant. Mr Gox told her it was the Greek for Rufus, son of Abraham.) Phryne volunteered to do so at once, and the women disappeared in a special room, from where very soon cries of amazement could be heard. The pure beauty of Phryne enchanted the women. The sensation was immense, ay immensest. "The representative of the _Daily Nail_ offered first £2000, then £3000, finally £5000 for permission to kodak Phryne. "The _Bad Times_ at once prepared a folio edition of _The Engravers' Engravings_, payable in 263 instalments, or preferably at once. "The _Daily Marconigraph_ started a public discussion in its columns: 'Shall the lower part of the upper anatomy of the female trunk be unveiled?' "The excitement became so universal that Mr Gigerl See at once convened a national meeting for the erection of ten new statues to Shakespeare; and General Booth ordered an absolute fast of 105 hours' duration.