ot easily outwitted or baffled in such matters, it was not till after a
week that I succeeded in getting an audience. There's no denying it,
he 's the best actor on or off the boards in Europe. He met me coldly,
haughtily. I had treated him badly, forsooth, shamefully; I had not
deigned a reply to any of his letters. He had written me three--he was
n't sure there were not four letters--to Rome. He had sent me cards for
the Pope's chapel--cards for Cardinal Somebody's receptions--cards for
a concert at St. Paul's, outside the walls. I don't know what attentions
he had not showered on me, nor how many of his high and titled friends
had not called at a hotel where I never stopped, or left their names
with a porter I never saw. I had to wait till he poured forth all this
with a grand eloquence, at once disdainful and damaging; the peroration
being in this wise--that such lapses as mine were things unknown in the
latitudes inhabited by well-bred people. 'These things are not done, Mr.
Cutbill,' said he, arrogantly; 'these things are not done! You may call
them trivial omissions, mere trifles, casual forgetful-ness, and such
like; but even men who have achieved distinction, who have won fame and
honors and reputation, as I am well aware is your case, would do well to
observe the small obligations which the discipline of society enforces,
and condescend to exchange that small coin of civilities which form the
circulating medium of good manners.' When he had delivered himself of
this he sat down overpowered; and though I, in very plain language, told
him that I did not believe a syllable about the letters, nor accept one
word of the lesson, he only fanned himself and bathed his temples with
rose-water, no more heeding me or my indignation than if I had been one
of the figures on his Japanese screen.

"'You certainly said you were stopping at the "Minerva,"' said he.

"'I certainly told your Lordship I was at Spilman's.'

"He wanted to show me why this could not possibly be the case--how
men like himself never made mistakes, and men like me continually did
so--that the very essence of great men's lives was to attach importance
to those smaller circumstances that inferior people disregarded, and so
on; but I simply said, 'Let us leave that question where it is, and go
on to a more important one. Have you had time to look over my account?'

"'If you had received the second of those letters you have with such
unfeigned candor ass