One night, Crieff, who knew everybody, took Sutherland to the lodgings of Gavrolles, and introduced him. Quite a little symposium was there, including Ponto the fatuous; Cassius Gass, a lean and limp critic from Cambridge; Blanco Serena, and several other painters; young Botticelli Jones, and one or two more callow poets, not to speak of Wallace MacNeill, the editor of the ‘Megatherium.’ Sutherland sat very silent. After the first, quick look at Gavrolles, and a second shock of recognition, he remained quiescent, but quietly observant. The talk was of ‘Lily and Rue,’ an anonymous poem which had just appeared, and which Ponto had just criticised with admiration. ‘I wonder who is the writer?’ said Botticelli Jones. ‘There are passages in it which are worthy of Byron.’ ‘Byron was a Philistine,’ cried Ponto; ‘he could never have written a piece of this kind. Look at the technique of his verse! It would disgrace a schoolboy! No, this is a cameo cut by an artist.’ ‘Shall I confess it!’ observed Gavrolles, smiling languidly. ‘I am of Henri Taine’s opinion, and prefer to your Byron our Alfred de Musset.’ Here Crieff, who was puffing carelessly at a briar-root pipe, threw himself back in his chair and laughed loudly. ‘I say! Is it possible you don’t know?’ ‘What?’ cried several voices. ‘That MacAlpine----’ A shudder ran through the assemblage at the mention of the hated name. ‘That MacAlpine has acknowledged the authorship of this poem.’ ‘What poem?’ demanded Ponto, trembling and turning pale. ‘Why, of “Lily and Eue.” Go and buy the third edition--you’ll find his name on the title-page.’ A terrible silence followed. The men looked in horror at one another. One man rose, livid and ghastly, put his hand to his head and left without a word. It was the editor of the ‘Megatherium.’ ‘Poor MacNeill,’ cried Crieff, with another laugh. ‘This is the second trick of the kind that MacAlpine has played him; this is the second time that he has devoted columns of praise to an author whom he would gladly see handed over, like the old heretics, to the secular arm. It only shows what humbug criticism is!’ ‘Excuse me,’ said Gass the critic, hysterically, ‘criticism is not humbug. It would be easy to show, on a profounder examination of this disagreeable work, that it is the work of a Philistine. The over-accentuation of the sensuous passages (which, by the way, are not sensuous, but prurient and ponderous), the want of finish in the trochaic couplets, the crudeness of the poetic terminology--’ ‘Would all have been evident enough,’ interrupted Crieff, dryly, ‘if MacAlpine’s name had been on the title-page. Without that, even superhuman insight, like yours, could not detect them.’