orget he was in the room. And the servants were
invariably respectful to him, quite as if he was a real swell; and
yet he didn't dress well and hadn't a servant of his own. He was just
the sort of man you would have thought flunkeys would have despised.

"But I have let my pen run on to an unconscionable length. It reminds
me of the remark with which he dismissed the subject of poor old Sir
Charles W---- who was staying there. We had been discussing him, and
asked Mr. Hamilton what he thought of him. 'A talking jackass,' was
his only reply, in his most chilling tones.

"I fear I am open to the same imputation.

"Very truly yours,
"Laura F----.

"I should like to know what you want this for; however, happily, I
have put it in a form you can't make much use of."

I was much amused at the way in which he treated gossip about himself.

I told him some stories about him that I had picked up. They related
to a certain absent-mindedness which he was supposed to possess.

"I am afraid they are not true," he said first. "I should welcome any
hint of absence of mind in myself as a sign that the abstract could
exclude the concrete, which is unfortunately not the case with me."
Then, in a moment, he said, "People have no business to tell such
stories. I should not mind their not being true, if they were only
characteristic."

"By which you mean," said a gentleman who was sitting next him, "that
you don't care about veracity, only you can't stand dullness."

"Not at all," said Arthur, quickly. "Veracity is not the question in
gossip at all. It is all hearsay. You have not to judge of the actual
truth of a scandalous story, but you have to judge of the probable
truth of it, and if it is obviously uncharacteristic it is wrong to
repeat it. It becomes scandal then, and not till then."

When he was living in London, which was, for the time being, his
home, he lived a regular life, combining more reading with a sociable
life than many people would have thought possible. He had two rooms
in a house in Russell Square. He breakfasted at half-past nine and
read till four, when he went down to his club and talked, or strolled
in the park. He made hardly any engagements, except for the evening;
and admitted hardly anyone, except two or three friends, to see him
at his rooms, and then only after one o'clock, before which hour
he was absolutely invisible. He was so dreadfully angry with his
landlady for showing a gentleman