"But poorly, I must confess. We have tiresome institutions enough in London without adding to them a sort of Ptolemaic Mouseion, for us to strut about on the steps of, in our palm-costume, attended by dialectical ladies and troops of intriguing pupils. Though that, I am sure," he added courteously, "is the last thing our friend Besant desires, yet I conceive it would tend to be the result of such consultation." "What then," said the novelist, "is to be the practical service of the English Academy to life and literature?" At this we all put on a grave and yet animated expression, for certainly, to each of us, this was a very important consideration. "Putting on one side," began Mr. Spencer, "the social advantage, the unquestionable dignity and importance given to individual literary accomplishment at a time when the purer parts of writing--I mean no disrespect to you novelists--are greatly neglected in the general hurly-burly; putting on one side this function of the English Academy, there remains, of course----" But, at this precise moment, when I was literally hanging on the lips of our eminent philosopher, the door opened with a considerable noise of gaiety, and Mr. Arthur Balfour entered, in company with a gentleman, who was introduced to me presently as Mr. Andrew Lang. "Two more Academicians, and this time neither novelists nor philosophers," said Black. They sat down close to us, so that the conversation was still general. "We were discussing the Academy," said Lord Lytton. "And we," replied Mr. Balfour, "were comparing notes about rackets. Lang tells me he has found a complete description of the game in one of the Icelandic sagas." "Played with a shuttlecock," said Mr. Lang, throwing himself back with a gesture of intense fatigue. "By the way, when we get to B in our Academy dictionary, I will write the article _battledore_. It is Provençal, I believe; but one must look up Skeat." "We shall be very old, I am afraid, before we reach letter B," I remarked, "shall we not?" "Oh! no," said Mr. Lang, "we shall fire away like fun. All we have to do is to crib our definitions out of Murray." "I hardly think that," said Mr. Besant; "we seem to have precious little to occupy ourselves with, but our dictionary at least you must leave us." We talked this over a little, and the general opinion seemed to be that it would turn out to be more an alphabetical series of monographs on the history of our language than a dictionary in the ordinary sense. And who was to have the courage to start it, no one seemed able to guess.