Later in the evening the clergyman, without any preliminary discourse, called upon the literary celebrity to tell his stories. Now throughout the world this writer is known as Alec Bidford, and now for the first time in his life he heard himself alluded to as Alexander Bedford; and it became clear to him that the good clergyman had never heard his name before! Happily the victim of the beautiful lady's importunity has a keen sense of humour, as any one who goes farther than the parson did, and reads one of his books, will not need to be told, and I have never heard him more humorous than when he refers to his selfconsciousness while the clergyman was dealing with the fame achieved by--Mr. Reuben Robinson, the amateur ventriloquist, who had come all the way miles from the village of Netherham, where he sold bacon in the daytime. I do not know what Alec Bid-ford's opinion is, but I do know that there are some people who believe that this sort of discipline is good for one, whether one may be a literary celebrity or some lesser personage. An appearance in a Court of Law usually serves the same purpose; but it must be more than irritating to a man whose name is known to and honoured by every member of his own profession to be treated in the court with no more consideration than is extended to the merest nonentity. The judge professes never to have heard his name mentioned before, and, if he has been a witness, refers to his evidence without thinking it necessary to give him the ordinary prefix of “Mr.” I have seen six of the most distinguished literary men in England--popular men, too, as well as geniuses--give evidence in a Court of Law, and yet the calling out of name after name did not cause even one of the solicitors' clerks to raise his head from the paper which he was reading, and the jurymen chatted together without being in the smallest degree impressed by the prospect of hearing the great one's voice. This also is discipline, I suppose. At any rate, it suggests that a provincial town is not the only place where a sense of proportion is lacking. CHAPTER SIX--THE OLD COUNTY TOWN I.--IN THE HIGH STREET