"Why? Because life hangs on a thread,--a society crush is the very acme of boredom and exhaustion,--and that we escape with our lives from a general guzzle and giggle is matter for thanksgiving,--that's all! And God gets so few thanks as a rule that you may surely spare Him a brief one for to-day's satisfactory ending." I laughed, seeing no meaning in his words beyond the usual satire he affected. I found Amiel, waiting for me in my bedroom, but I dismissed him abruptly, hating the look of his crafty and sullen face, and saying I needed no attendance. Thoroughly fatigued, I was soon in bed and asleep,--and the terrific agencies that had produced the splendours of the brilliant festival at which I had figured as host, were not revealed to me by so much as a warning dream! XXV A few days after the entertainment at Willowsmere, and before the society papers had done talking about the magnificence and luxury displayed on that occasion, I woke up one morning, like the great poet Byron, "to find myself famous." Not for any intellectual achievement,--not for any unexpected deed of heroism,--not for any resolved or noble attitude in society or politics,--no!--I owed my fame merely to a quadruped;--'Phosphor' won the Derby. It was about a neck-and-neck contest between my racer and that of the Prime Minister, and for a second or so the result seemed doubtful,--but, as the two jockeys neared the goal, Amiel, whose thin wiry figure clad in the brightest of bright scarlet silk, stuck to his horse as though he were a part of it, put 'Phosphor' to a pace he had never yet exhibited, appearing to skim along the ground at literally flying speed, the upshot being that he scored a triumphant victory, reaching the winning-post a couple of yards or more ahead of his rival. Acclamations rent the air at the vigour displayed in the 'finish'--and I became the hero of the day,--the darling of the populace. I was somewhat amused at the Premier's discomfiture,--he took his beating rather badly. He did not know me, nor I him,--I was not of his politics, and I did not care a jot for his feelings one way or the other, but I was gratified, in a certain satirical sense, to find myself suddenly acknowledged as a greater man than he, because I was the owner of the Derby-winner! Before I well knew where I was, I found myself being presented to the Prince of Wales, who shook hands with me and congratulated me;--all the biggest aristocrats in England were willing and eager to be introduced to me;--and inwardly I laughed at this exhibition of taste and culture on the part of 'the gentlemen of England that live at home at ease.' They crowded round 'Phosphor,' whose wild eye warned strangers against taking liberties with him, but who seemed not a whit the worse for his exertions, and who apparently was quite ready to run the race over again with equal pleasure and success. Amiel's dark sly face and cruel ferret eyes were