library, my time, my favorite lounge, and my best brand of
cigars, in return for which he contributed philosophic opinions
and much strenuous advice on topics in general and literature in
particular.

From my childhood I have been in the habit of keeping a diary, a
running comment on the daily incidents of my pleasant but
uneventful life, and occasionally, when Bunsey's society seemed
too assertive and familiar, I sought to punish him by reading
long and numerous excerpts. To do him justice he took the
chastisement meekly, and even insisted that I was burying a
remarkable talent, sometimes going to the magnanimous extreme of
offering to introduce me to his publisher, and to speak a good
word for me to the editors of certain magazines with whom he
maintained a brisk correspondence, not infrequently of a
querulous nature. All these friendly offices I gently put aside,
in recalling the degradation of Bunsey's ideals, though I went on
tolerating Bunsey, who had a good heart and an insistent manner.
In this way I possibly deprived myself of a glorious career.

My ability to befriend Bunsey was due to a felicitous chain of
circumstances. When the late Mrs. Stanhope passed to her reward,
she considerately left behind a document making me the recipient
of her entire and not inconsiderable fortune. This proved a
most unexpected blow to the church, which had enjoyed the honor
and pleasure of Mrs. Stanhope's association, and which, quite
naturally, had hoped to profit by her decease. The late Mrs.
Stanhope, who I neglected to say was, in the eyes of Heaven,
the world, and the law, my wife, had not lived with me in that
utter abandonment to conjugal affection so much to be desired.
We married to please our families, and we lived apart as much
as possible to please ourselves. Though not without certain
physical charms, Mrs. Stanhope was a woman of great moral
rigidity and religious austerity, who saw life through the
diminishing end of a sectarian telescope, and who cared far
more for the distant heathen than for the local convivial pagans
who composed my _entourage_. She had brought to me a considerable
sum of money, which I had increased by judicious investments,
and I dare say that it was in recognition of my business ability,
as well as possibly in a moment of becoming wifely remorse, that
she bequeathed to me her property intact. I gave her final
testimonial services wholly in keeping with her standing as
a church-woman,