All the biting satire and vitriolic irony that Mr. Learned Bore had so well at his command was here employed to compliment the Lord Mayor upon being acclaimed a great Christian in the afternoon after opening his New House for Children; whilst he was found at night like any Pagan of old worshipping one of the lions in Trafalgar Square, around whose mane he had hung a votive wreath of water-lilies, across whose unresponsive neck the Lord Mayor had wound his arms in supplication, imploring it that it might speak, and give a sign like the Oracle in Delphi. Was the Lord Mayor of London the last of the great Pagans? asked the writer, or had he merely gone back a few thousand years in imagination, owing to the insidious suggestions of another Heathen Deity who had doubtless presided over the Wine-press with an unstinted hand earlier in the day during the banquet at the Guildhall? The writer dared to express a hope that it was merely a form of Civic debauchery emanating from the oft-replenished toasts of the Devil's cup, rather than a classical intoxication which if persisted in might plunge the whole of London once more into the perverted darkness of Pagan ages. The Lord Mayor seized his hat and called for his carriage, and arrived at the Writer's chambers overlooking Trafalgar Square, purple in the face. "Yes, I've read it, Dad," remarked the Writer as he observed Sir Simon's signs of almost apoplectic agitation. "It's very bad form, and what is worse it's very badly written." "The pen is mightier than the sword," shouted Sir Simon, "and unfortunately the sword is out of date nowadays, or I would challenge him upon the spot; but, my boy, you have the pen, and you can use it, and a jolly sight better than the silly ass who wrote that article. Will you answer him for me?" The Writer smiled and shook his head. "No, Dad, that is exactly what he wants; he would get all the advertisement out of such a controversy that his soul craves for, and which is absolutely necessary for him now to keep up his reputation. I have something to suggest much better than that." "What is it?" asked the Lord Mayor helplessly. "Did you ever consider some of the characteristics of Ulysses, Dad?" "Oh, they talked about him in my school-days, but I didn't have much schooling, you know; and what on earth has Ulysses to do with this?" The Writer grinned. "Because, Dad, he possessed a remarkably wily gift of always finding his enemies' one vulnerable spot." "Well?" "I know at least two of Learned Bore's most vulnerable spots." "Eh? Unbounded conceit and unlimited calumny?" questioned Sir Simon. "No," rejoined the Writer, "I should say he was _invulnerable_ upon those two points. However, two things he dreads more than anything else. He has a horror of ridicule when it is turned upon himself, and an unutterable and most unnatural hatred of all children." "Well, I don't see how that helps me," rejoined the Lord Mayor.