you like," with an exultant laugh.

The names of the dramatic stars blazing over entrances to the theatres
were often English names, their plays English plays, their companies
made up of English men and women. G. Selden was as familiar with them
and commented upon their gifts as easily as if he had drawn his drama
from the Strand instead of from Broadway. The novels piled up in the
stations of what he called "the L" (which revealed itself as being
a New-York-haste abbreviation of Elevated railroad), were in large
proportion English novels, and he had his ingenuous estimate of English
novelists, as well as of all else.

"Ruddy, now," he said; "I like him. He's all right, even though we
haven't quite caught onto India yet."

The dazzle and brilliancy of Broadway so surrounded Penzance that he
found it necessary to withdraw himself and return to his immediate
surroundings, that he might recover from his sense of interested
bewilderment. His eyes fell upon the stern lineaments of a Mount Dunstan
in a costume of the time of Henry VIII. He was a burly gentleman,
whose ruff-shortened thick neck and haughty fixedness of stare from the
background of his portrait were such as seemed to eliminate him from the
scheme of things, the clanging of electric cars, and the prevailing
roar of the L. Confronted by his gaze, electric light advertisements of
whiskies, cigars, and corsets seemed impossible.

"He's all right," continued G. Selden. "I'm ready to separate myself
from one fifty any time I see a new book of his. He's got the goods with
him."

The richness of colloquialism moved the vicar of Mount Dunstan to deep
enjoyment.

"Would you mind--I trust you won't," he apologised courteously, "telling
me exactly the significance of those two last sentences. In think I see
their meaning, but----"

G. Selden looked good-naturedly apologetic himself.

"Well, it's slang--you see," he explained. "I guess I can't help it.
You--" flushing a trifle, but without any touch of resentment in the
boyish colour, "you know what sort of a chap I am. I'm not passing
myself off as anything but an ordinary business hustler, am I--just
under salesman to a typewriter concern? I shouldn't like to think I'd
got in here on any bluff. I guess I sling in slang every half dozen
words----."

"My dear boy," Penzance was absolutely moved and he spoke with
warmth quite paternal, "Lord Mount Dunstan and I are genuinely
interested--genuinely. He, because he