For many years the highest of these had been called “the Private Bar,” and was distinguished from its next fellow by this, that the cushions upon its little bench were covered with sodden velvet, not with oilcloth. Here, also, the drink provided by the politician who owned this and many other public-houses was served in glasses of uncertain size and not by imperial measure. This, I say, had been the chief or summit of the place for many years; from the year of the great Exhibition, in fact until that great change in London life which took place towards the end of the eighties and brought us, among other things, a new art and a new conception of world-wide power. In those years, as the mind of London changed so did this little public-house (which was called “the Lord Benthorpe”), and it added yet another step to its hierarchy of pens. This new place was called “the Saloon Bar.” It was larger and better padded, and there was a tiny table in it. Then the years went on and wars were fought and the modern grip of man over natural forces marvellously extended, and the wealth of a world’s Metropolis greatly swelled, and “The Lord Benthorpe” found room for yet another and final reserve wherein it might receive the very highest of its clients. This was built upon what had been the backyard, it had several tables, and it was called “the Lounge.” So far so good. Here late one evening when the music-halls had just discharged their thousands, and when the Elephants, the Zebras, and the Ponies near by were retiring to rest, sat two men, both authors; the one was an author who had written for now many years upon social subjects, and notably upon the statistics of our industrial conditions. He had come nearer than any other to the determination of the Incidence of Economic Rent upon Retail Exchange and had been the first to show (in an essay, now famous) that the Ricardian Theory of Surplus did not apply in the anarchic competition of Retail Dealing, at least in our main thoroughfares. His companion wielded the pen in another manner. It was his to analyse into its last threads of substance the human mind. Rare books proceeded from him at irregular and lengthy intervals packed with a close observation of the ultimate motives of men and an exact portrayal of their labyrinth of deed; nor could he achieve his ideal in this province of letters save by the use of words so unusual and, above all, arranged in an order so peculiar to himself, as to bring upon his few readers often perplexity and always awe.