He fancied himself an orator, and spouted on politics till he bored everybody to death. Believed himself a poet, and wrote execrable verses. Flattered himself he was an artist of a high order, and painted daubs that moved his friends to mirth. The Premier paused. Then proceeding, he said: "He came to London after leaving Cambridge, and went the pace. In a few years he had run through his money. Then began the downward progress. He became a sponger and a leech, borrowed money in every likely quarter--cadged for his luncheons and dinners. He had been very generous and hospitable in his day, and his friends put up with him as long as they could. One by one, they fell away, wearied by his importunities. Then he came to the last stage--he took to drinking to excess. Through the influence of the stauncher of his acquaintance, who still pitied him, he had secured three or four good positions. One after another he had to relinquish them, owing to his intemperate habits. That was the actual finish. He disappeared from a world in which he had once held a very decent footing, and joined the great army of degenerates who live nobody knows where, and Heaven knows how." "I take it he is not speaking the truth when he says that he knew Mr Monkton intimately?" asked Smeaton, when Mr Chesterton had finished the brief narrative. The Premier shrugged his shoulders. "We were all at Cambridge together. He knew Monkton and he knew me, in the way that undergraduates know each other. We met afterwards, occasionally, in some of the many sets that constitute Society. But I am sure that Monkton was never intimate with him. He was one of dozens of men that he had known at school and college. Boyle always built up his supposed friendships on very slender material. It used to be said that if he knocked against an Archbishop by accident, and begged his pardon, he would swear afterwards that he was on terms of intimacy with him." There was a pause before Smeaton put his next question. "This man tells me that at one time there was a scandal about Mr Monkton and a certain Lady Wrenwyck--a woman of fashion and a noted beauty. I take the liberty of asking you to confirm or refute that." Mr Chesterton frowned slightly. "I take it, Mr Smeaton, you have a good reason for asking me this. But, frankly, I am not fond of raising old ghosts." Smeaton answered him a little stiffly. "In my calling, sir. we are often compelled to put inconvenient questions, but only when, in our judgment, they are absolutely necessary." "I accept your statement on that head, unreservedly, Mr Smeaton." The frown cleared from the Premier's brow, and his tone was marked with that fine courtesy which had secured him so many friends.