"Yesterday," he went on in the same quiet voice--"a child was run over here, just opposite this hotel. It was _only_ a poor child,--mark that 'only.' Its mother ran shrieking out of some back-street hard by, in time to see the little bleeding body carted up in a mangled heap. She struck wildly with both hands at the men who were trying to lead her away, and with a cry like that of some hurt savage animal fell face forward in the mud--dead. She was only a poor woman,--another 'only.' There were three lines in the paper about it headed 'Sad Incident.' The hotel-porter here witnessed the scene from the door with as composed a demeanor as that of a fop at the play, never relaxing the serene majesty of his attitude,--but about ten minutes after the dead body of the woman had been carried out of sight, he, the imperial, gold-buttoned being, became almost crook-backed in his servile haste to run and open the door of your brougham, my dear Geoffrey, as you drove up to the entrance. This is a little epitome of life as it is lived now-a-days,--and yet the canting clerics swear we are all equal in the sight of heaven! We may be, though it does not look much like it,--and if we are, it does not matter, as we have ceased to care how heaven regards us. I don't want to point a moral,--I simply tell you the 'sad incident' as it occurred,--and I am sure you are not the least sorry for the fate of either the child who was run over, or its mother who died in the sharp agony of a suddenly broken heart. Now don't say you are, because I know you're not!" "How can one feel sorry for people one does not know or has never seen,--" I began. "Exactly!--How is it possible? And there we have it--how can one feel, when one's self is so thoroughly comfortable as to be without any other feeling save that of material ease? Thus, my dear Geoffrey, you must be content to let your book appear as the reflex and record of your past when you were in the prickly or sensitive stage,--now you are encased in a pachydermatous covering of gold, which adequately protects you from such influences as might have made you start and writhe, perhaps even roar with indignation, and in the access of fierce torture, stretch out your hands and grasp--quite unconsciously--the winged thing called Fame!" "You should have been an orator,"--I said, rising and pacing the room to and fro in vexation,--"But to me your words are not consoling, and I do not think they are true. Fame is easily enough secured." "Pardon me if I am obstinate;"--said Lucio with a deprecatory gesture--"Notoriety is easily secured--very easily. A few critics who have dined with you and had their fill of wine, will give you notoriety. But fame is the voice of the whole civilized public of the world." "The public!" I echoed contemptuously--"The public only care for trash."