The ‘old set’ varied according to the speakers; with some it was only the fellows at Clipstone Street; but with all the moral was the same; the cheery days and nights, the wild sallies of youthful freedom, the great hopes dwindled into nothing, the many, many fallen by the way, not one-half of the crowd seeming to have come safely through the struggles of the beginning. ‘Poor So-and-so! If ever there was a man who had a real feeling for art, it was he; and as good a fellow’--they added, puffing forth meditative clouds; and there would be a laugh the next moment over some remembered pranks. Laurie had formed one of many such parties ere now. He, too, had been of the ‘old set:’ he had his stories to contribute, his momentary sigh to breathe forth along with the fumes of his cigar. But, perhaps, he had never in his amateur days felt so completely belonging to the society in which he found himself. Sometimes, perhaps, he had laughed a little, and given himself a little shake of half-conscious superiority when he left them, and set out to Kensington Gore as to another world; but Charlotte Street was emphatically the same world, and the _esprit de corps_ was strong in Laurie’s heart. ‘Anch’io pittore,’ he said to himself as he stood indignant before Suffolk’s beautiful picture which had been hung up at the roof. It was a beautiful picture; and one of these days the Hanging Committee might treat himself in the same way; and if by chance criticism should really be so effectual as everybody said, why should not something be done for Suffolk--using the devil’s tools, as it were, to do a good action--by means of Slasher and the ‘Sword?’