was from his companion, who sat opposite to him,
with his great broad back, covered with a smart velvet coat, towards
me, that the talk was now coming. This man was smoking cigarettes in
that kind of furious sucking way which is characteristic of great
smokers. Much smoking, however, had not dried up his skin to the
consistence of blotting paper and to the colour of tobacco ash as it
does in some cases, but tobacco juice, which seemed to ooze from his
face like perspiration, or rather like oil, had made his complexion
of a yellow green colour, something like a vegetable marrow. Although
his face was as hairless as a woman's, there was not a feature in it
that was not masculine. Although his cheek-bones were high and his
jaw was of the mould which we so often associate with the
prizefighter, he looked as if he might somehow be a gentleman. And
when I got for a moment a full view of his face as he turned round, I
thought it showed power and intelligence, although his forehead
receded a good deal, a recession which was owing mainly to the bone
above the eyes. Power and intelligence too were seen in every glance
of his dark bright eyes. In a few minutes Wilderspin's name was again
uttered by this man, and I found he was telling anecdotes of the
eccentric painter--telling them with great gusto and humour, in a
loud voice, quite careless of being overheard by me. Then followed
other anecdotes of other people--artists for the most part--in which
the names of Millais, Ruskin, Watts, Leighton, and others came up in
quick succession.

That he was a professional anecdote-monger of extraordinary
brilliancy, a _raconteur_ of the very first order, was evident
enough. I found also that as a story-teller he was reckless and
without conscience. He was, I thought, inventing anecdotes to amuse
his companion, whose manifest enjoyment of them rather weakened the
impression that his own personality had been making upon me.

After a while the name of Cyril Aylwin came up, and I soon found the
man telling a story of Cyril and a recent escapade of his which I
knew must be false. He then went rattling on about other people,
mentioning names which, as I soon gathered, were those of female
models known in the art world. The anecdotes he told of these were
mostly to their disadvantage. I was about to move to another table,
in order to get out of earshot of this gossip, when the name 'Lady
Sinfi' fell upon my ears.

And then I heard the other m