his table and no directions where they are to
be forwarded. On the whole, however, he has held his own in London
society,--eh?"

"Certainly! he has been more courted than most young men, and perhaps
more talked of. Oddities generally are."

"You own he has talents above the average? Do you not think he will make
a figure in the world some day, and discharge that debt to the literary
stores or the political interests of his country, which alas, I and my
predecessors, the other Sir Peters, failed to do; and for which I hailed
his birth, and gave him the name of Kenelm?"

"Upon my word," answered Mivers,--who had now finished his breakfast,
retreated to an easy-chair, and taken from the chimney-piece one of his
famous trabucos,--"upon my word, I can't guess; if some great reverse
of fortune befell him, and he had to work for his livelihood, or if some
other direful calamity gave a shock to his nervous system and jolted it
into a fussy, fidgety direction, I dare say he might make a splash in
that current of life which bears men on to the grave. But you see he
wants, as he himself very truly says, the two stimulants to definite
action,--poverty and vanity."

"Surely there have been great men who were neither poor nor vain?"

"I doubt it. But vanity is a ruling motive that takes many forms
and many aliases: call it ambition, call it love of fame, still its
substance is the same,--the desire of applause carried into fussiness of
action."

"There may be the desire for abstract truth without care for applause."

"Certainly. A philosopher on a desert island may amuse himself by
meditating on the distinction between light and heat. But if, on
returning to the world, he publish the result of his meditations, vanity
steps in and desires to be applauded."

"Nonsense, Cousin Mivers, he may rather desire to be of use and benefit
to mankind. You don't deny that there is such a thing as philanthropy."

"I don't deny that there is such a thing as humbug. And whenever I meet
a man who has the face to tell me that he is taking a great deal
of trouble, and putting himself very much out of his way, for a
philanthropical object, without the slightest idea of reward either in
praise or pence, I know that I have a humbug before me,--a dangerous
humbug, a swindling humbug, a fellow with his pocket full of villanous
prospectuses and appeals to subscribers."

"Pooh, pooh; leave off that affectation of cynicism: you are not a
bad-hearted