t of us is capable of a kindly feeling
towards the benefactor who makes others imperishably ridiculous in our
eyes; and to do this was my _metier a moi_. At first my identity with
the lively but terrible 'Vitriol' was kept a profound secret, but
gradually, by some means which I do not at present remember, it leaked
out, and I immediately became a social, as well as a literary,
celebrity. Physically I have been endowed with a presence which, though
not of unusual height and somewhat inclined to central expansion,
produces, I find, an invariably imposing effect, especially with members
of the more emotional and impressionable sex. Consequently I was not
surprised even at the really extraordinary sensation I inspired upon my
first introduction to a very charming young lady, Miss Iris Waverley, as
soon as my _nom de guerre_ was (I forget just now by whom) incidentally
alluded to. However, as it turned out, she had another and a deeper
reason for emotion: it seemed she had been engaged to a young poet whose
verses, to her untaught and girlish judgment, seemed inspired by
draughts of the true Helicon, and whose rhythmical raptures had stirred
her maiden heart to its depths.

Well, that young poet's latest volume of verse came under my notice for
review, and in my customary light-hearted fashion I held it up to
general derision for a column or two, and then dismissed it, with an
ineffaceable epigrammatic kick, to spin for ever (approximately) down
the ringing grooves of criticism.

Miss Waverley, it happened, was inclined to correct her own views by the
opinions of others, and was, moreover, exceptionally sensitive to any
association of ridicule with the objects of her attachment--indeed, she
once despatched a dog she fondly loved to the lethal chamber at
Battersea, merely because all the hair had come off the poor animal's
tail! My trenchant sarcasms had depoetised her lover in a similar
fashion; their livid lightning had revealed the baldness, the glaring
absurdity of the very stanzas which once had filled her eyes with
delicious tears; he was dismissed, and soon disappeared altogether from
the circles which I had (in perfect innocence) rendered impossible to
him.

Notwithstanding this, Miss Waverley's first sentiments towards me were
scarcely, oddly enough, of unmixed gratitude. I represented the rod, and
a very commendable feeling of propriety made her unwilling to kiss me on
a first interview, though, as our intimacy a