pronounced the young bookbinder a suggestive little beggar, and Hyacinth’s opinion of him was by this time so exalted that the remark had almost the value of a patent of nobility. Our hero treated himself to a high unlimited faith in him; he had always dreamed of some grand friendship and this was the best opening he had yet encountered. No one could entertain a sentiment of that sort more nobly, more ingeniously than Hyacinth, or cultivate with more art the intimate personal relation. It disappointed him sometimes that his confidence was not more unreservedly repaid; that on certain important points of the socialistic programme Muniment would never commit himself and had not yet shown the _fond du sac_, as Eustache Poupin called it, to so ardent an admirer. He answered particular appeals freely enough, and answered them occasionally in a manner that made Hyacinth jump, as when in reply to a question about his attitude on capital punishment he said that so far from wishing it abolished he should go in for extending it much further—he should impose it on those who habitually lied or got drunk; but his friend had always a feeling that he kept back his best card and that even in the listening circle in Bloomsbury, when only the right men were present, there were unspoken conclusions in his mind which he didn’t as yet think any one good enough to be favoured with. So far therefore from suspecting him of any real poverty of programme Hyacinth was sure he had extraordinary things in his head; that he was thinking them out to the logical end, wherever it might land him; and that the night he should produce them with the door of the club-room guarded and the company bound by a tremendous oath the others would look at each other, gasp and turn pale. “She wants to see you; she asked me to bring you; she was very serious,” our young man meanwhile said, reporting his interview with the ladies in the box at the play; which, however, now that he looked back upon it, seemed as queer as a dream and not much more likely than that sort of experience to have a continuation in one’s waking hours. “To bring me—to bring me where?” asked Muniment. “You talk as if I were a sample out of your shop or a little dog you had for sale. Has she ever seen me? Does she think I’m smaller than you? What does she know about me?” “Well, principally that you’re a friend of mine—that’s enough for her.” “Do you mean it ought to be enough for me that she’s a friend of yours? I’ve a notion you’ll have some queer ones before you’ve done; a good many more than I have time to talk to. And how can I go to see a delicate female with those paws?” Muniment said as he exhibited ten work-stained fingers. “Buy a pair of gloves—” Hyacinth recognised the serious character of this obstacle. But after a moment he added: “No, you oughtn’t to do that. She wants to see dirty hands.” “That’s easy enough, good Lord! She needn’t send for me for the purpose. But isn’t she making game of you?”