"He's pathetically original; plebeian on his mother's side; very good-natured; nothing at all of a sportsman; and painfully short of both intellect and cash--a funny, harmless, distracted little man who runs about asking everybody the best and quickest methods of amassing a comfortable fortune in America. And I must say that people have jollied him rather cruelly. "The Sarnoffs on the other hand are modest and nice people--the Prince is a yellow, dried-up Asiatic who is making a collection of parasites--a shrewd, kindly, and clever little scientist. His wife is a charming girl, intellectual but deliciously feminine. She was Cynthia Challis before her marriage, and always a most attractive and engaging personality. They dined with us at the Legation on Thursday. "Afterward there was a dance at Mrs. Sprowl's. I led from one end, Lester Caldera from the other. One or two newspapers criticised the decorations and favours as vulgarly expensive; spoke of a 'monkey figure'--purely imaginary--which they said I introduced into the cotillion, and that the favours were marmosets!--who probably were the intellectual peers of anybody present. "The old lady is in a terrific temper. I'm afraid some poor scribblers are going to catch it. I thought it very funny. "Speaking of scribblers and temper reminds me that Karl Westguard's new book is stirring up a toy tempest. He has succeeded in offending a dozen people who pretend to recognise themselves or their relatives among the various characters. I don't know whether the novel is really any good, or not. We, who know Karl so intimately, find it hard to realise that perhaps he may be a writer of some importance. "There appears to be considerable excitement about this new book. People seem inclined to discuss it at dinners; Karl's publishers are delighted. Karl, on the contrary, is not at all flattered by the kind of a success that menaces him. He is mad all through, but not as mad as his redoubtable aunt, who tells everybody that he's a scribbling lunatic who doesn't know what he's writing, and that she washes her fat and gem-laden hands of him henceforth. "Poor Karl! He's already thirty-seven; he's written fifteen books, no one of which, he tells me, ever before stirred up anybody's interest. But this newest novel, 'The Real Thing,' has already gone into three editions in two weeks--whatever that actually means--and still the re-orders are pouring in, and his publishers are madly booming it, and several indignant people are threatening Karl with the law of libel, and Karl is partly furious, partly amused, and entirely astonished at the whole affair.