A parody of one of his plays was inserted in a comic paper, and it was bruited abroad that Andrew Mackay was collaborating with him in preparing one of his dramas for representation at the Independent Theatre. This set the older critics by the ears, and they protested vehemently in their theatrical columns against the infamous ethics propagated by the new writer, quoting largely from the specimens of his work given in Mackay's article in the _Fortnightly Review_. Patrick, who wrote the dramatic criticism for seven papers, led the attack upon the audacious iconoclast. Journalesia was convulsed by the quarrel, and even young ladies asked their partners in the giddy waltz whether they were Fladpickiets or Anti-Fladpickiets. You could never be certain of escaping Fladpick at dinner, for the lady you took down was apt to take you down by her contempt of your ignorance of Fladpick's awfully sweet writings. Any amount of people promised one another introductions to Fladpick, and those who had met him enjoyed quite a reflected reputation in Belgravian circles. As to the Fladpickian parties, which brother geniuses like Dick Jones and Harry Robinson gave to the great writer, it was next to impossible to secure an invitation to them, and comparatively few boasted of the privilege. Fladpick reaped a good deal of _kudos_ from refusing to be lionized and preferring the society of men of letters like himself, during his rare halting moments in England. Long before this stage Mackay had seen his way to introducing the catch-word of the conspiracy, "The English Shakespeare." He defended vehemently the ethics of the great writer, claiming they were at core essentially at one with those of the great nation from whence he sprang and whose very life-blood had passed into his work. This brought about a reaction, and all over the country the scribblers hastened to do justice to the maligned writer, and an elaborate analysis of his most subtle characters was announced as having been undertaken by Mr. Patrick Boyle. And when it was stated that he was to be included in the Contemporary Men of Letters Series, the advance orders for the work were far in advance of the demand for Fladpick's actual writings. "Shakespearean," "The English Shakespeare," was now constantly used in connection with his work, and even the most hard-worked reviewers promised themselves to skim his book in their next summer holidays. About this time, too, _Dazzler_ unconsciously helped the Society by announcing that Fladpick was dying of consumption in a snow-hut in Greenland, and it was felt that he must either die or go to a warmer climate, if not both. The news of his phthisic weakness put the seal upon his genius, and the great heart of the nation went out to him in his lonely snow-hut, but returned on learning that the report was a _canard_. Still, the danger he had passed through endeared him to his country, and within a few months