shly-acquired knowledge, he found no man among them who would
admit that he had not from his birth upward been equally familiar with
the author in question. It would be easy, surely, some one may say, to
expose such pretension. Just so; of course it would. But when one
brother had shown tonight that his friends had never read Schopenhauer,
and in point of fact could not read him if they tried, who should
guarantee that same brother against a similar exposure of his own
harmless little false pretences to-morrow when he professed to know all
about Euripides? It was not found convenient in this little circle to
examine too closely into the pretensions of each other. Live and let
live was the motto of the school so far as their esoteric professors
were concerned.

There was indeed a legend that some malign person acquainted with the
peculiarities of the school had once compelled them to invent a patron
poet. It was done in this fashion: the malign person talked confidently
and fluently to one of the order concerning a French poet, whom he
described as a gifted apostle of a kindred school, and whom he was
pleased to name De Patroque. The youth thus talked to was not to be
outdone, or even to be instructed. He gave out that he had long had his
eyes fixed reverently on the genius of the gifted De Patroque. He
talked largely, not to say bouncingly, of the great De Patroque among
his friends, who, not to be outdone in their turn, talked to him and to
others of the new apostle. The fame of De Patroque grew and grew, until
at last ill-natured persons affirmed that several essays on his genius,
and fraternal hymns of honor, were composed for him by the admirers of
his mythical career.

To this select circle Mr. Blanchet had for some time proposed to
introduce his friend Victor Heron. On the very day when the first
copies of the gorgeous poems were submitted to privileged eyes, Mr.
Blanchet called on his friend. He found the friend a little put out by
the unexpected lavishness of the manner in which the poetic enterprise
had been carried on.

"This will be an awfully expensive business, I'm afraid," Heron said,
in an embarrassed tone, for he felt that it was a sort of profanation
to talk of money matters with a young poet. "I wish you had let me do
this thing myself, Blanchet. I'd not have minded so far as I'm
concerned. But I don't know about her, you see--she may not have much
money. Then young ladies are generally so enthusias