"He goes abroad now in a silk-lined coat with lace ruffles. He has bought a new wig and started a subscription list for a new poem, having eaten up the last before the poem was written. I subscribed for three copies yesterday, and we pretended, both of us, he that he did not want the money, and I that I had always had it. Without forgetting and pretending, where should we be?" "Indeed," said Mrs. Esther, "one would not willingly either forget or pretend. But some things are best remembered in silence. The memory of them should keep us humble, Sir Miles." "I do not wish to be humble," replied the baronet. "Humble people do not sing and drink, nor gamble, nor make love. They go in sadness and with hanging heads. I would still go proud." While he was with us came Solomon himself, bravely dressed indeed, with about an ell of ribbon tied around his throat, a new and fashionable wig, and bearing himself with all the dignity possible in a poet of five-feet-three. His chin was in the air and his hat under his arm when he marched into the little room. I shook hands with him, and whispered to him not to mention the word Fleet. Thereupon he advanced to Mrs. Esther with such a bow as would have graced a court, saying-- "Madam, I have had the honour of being presented to you in London, but I know not if I am still distinguished by your recollection." "Sir," said Mrs. Esther, "that person must indeed be blind to merit who can forget Mr. Stallabras, the favourite of the Muses." "O madam! this compliment----" "O sir! our hearts are not so insensible as to forget those delightful verses, which should be the glory of an unthinking age." I asked him then if he had received a bequest. "I have found what is better," he said, "a female Mæcenas. The virtues of antiquity linger only in the breasts of the fair. She is a person of singularly cold and calm judgment. Despréaux himself had not a cooler head or a sounder critical faculty. Therefore, when such a lady prophesies immortal renown to a poet, that poet may congratulate himself. I am poet laureate to Lady Tamarind, relict of Sir Joseph Tamarind, brewer and sometime sheriff in the City of London. Her ladyship's taste is considered infallible in all subjects, whether china, tulips, plays, pictures, fans, snuff-boxes, black boys, or poets." His eyes twinkled so brightly, his turn-up nose seemed so joyfully to sniff the incense of praise, prosperity had already made his cheeks so sleek and fat, that we could hardly recognise our starveling poet. "The taste," said Mrs. Esther, "of a woman who recognises the merit of your verses, Mr. Stallabras, is beyond a doubt." He rubbed his hands and laughed. "I was already out--" he began, but as we all manifested the greatest confusion at the beginning of this confession, he stopped and turned red. "I mean I was--I was----" "You were beginning, I think," I interrupted, "to open a new subscription."