Now, of money I have enough, and of fame--well! I am a friend of Gladstone's, and that assures fame to anybody! FOOTNOTE: [1] Miss Hannah Lynch has published a "Commentary" on the works of George Meredith. X. OF THE SOCIAL ELEPHANT. Upon my word, the crowd is very dense just here! I find it more than difficult to elbow a passage through. And I know how dangerous it is to jostle literary men, even by accident--they are so touchy, that no matter how politely you apologise for the inadvertency, they never excuse it. And there is a little obstruction yonder in the person of the tame Elephant, who is a sort of grotesque pet of ours; he moves slowly on account of his bulk, and he has a big palanquin on his back in which sits the Fairy who manages him. It's quite a charming spectacle--especially the Fairy part of it--and although there is such a crush in this particular corner, it is pleasant to see how good-natured some of the people are, and how kindly they allow the Elephant to get along in spite of increasing scarcity of room, and how they all make light of his awkward size because he is such a nice, mild, innocent, sagacious creature. What am I talking about?--who am I talking about? Nothing!--nobody! I am only making an allegory. It is not called "The Sunlight Lay Across my Bed," but "The Elephant Walked Across my Path." So he did on one occasion. I wasn't a bit inconvenienced by his proceedings; he thought I was, but I wasn't. When they are at home the Elephant and the Fairy live together. The Elephant has a Trunk (or Intellectual Faculty) of the utmost delicacy and sensitiveness at the tip, and with this exquisitely formed member he is fond of picking up Pins. The Fairy watches him with a touch of melancholy interest in her lovely eyes; pins are certainly useful, and he does pick them up "beautifully." No one can be more bewitching than the Fairy; no one can be blander or more aware of his own value than the Elephant. Conscious of weight and ponderous movement, he nevertheless manages to preserve a suggestion of something indefinable that is "utter." He is not without malice--note the slyness of his eye when he is at his graceful trick of Pin-lifting. He will, it is true, wave his trunk to and fro with a majestic gentleness that seems harmless, but a closer inspection of him will arouse in the timorous observer a vague sense of danger. The chances are ten to one that he will accept the sugared biscuit (or compliment) offered to him by the unsuspecting beholder, and then that he will incontinently seize the unsuspecting one suddenly round the body and dash him to bits on the flat ground of some hard journalistic matter suitable for smashing a man. But he never forgets himself so far as to trumpet forth this secret capability of his; the only warning the visitor ever receives as to his possible malicious intent is the solemn twinkle of his sly green eye. Beware that eye! it means mischief.