who delivered us from the dreary tyranny of the realistic novel. My
life, Knockespotch said, is not so long that I can afford to spend
precious hours writing or reading descriptions of middle-class
interiors. He said again, 'I am tired of seeing the human mind bogged in
a social plenum; I prefer to paint it in a vacuum, freely and sportively
bombinating.'"

"I say," said Gombauld, "Knockespotch was a little obscure sometimes,
wasn't he?"

"He was," Mr. Scogan replied, "and with intention. It made him seem even
profounder than he actually was. But it was only in his aphorisms that
he was so dark and oracular. In his Tales he was always luminous. Oh,
those Tales--those Tales! How shall I describe them? Fabulous characters
shoot across his pages like gaily dressed performers on the trapeze.
There are extraordinary adventures and still more extraordinary
speculations. Intelligences and emotions, relieved of all the imbecile
preoccupations of civilised life, move in intricate and subtle dances,
crossing and recrossing, advancing, retreating, impinging. An immense
erudition and an immense fancy go hand in hand. All the ideas of the
present and of the past, on every possible subject, bob up among
the Tales, smile gravely or grimace a caricature of themselves, then
disappear to make place for something new. The verbal surface of his
writing is rich and fantastically diversified. The wit is incessant.
The..."

"But couldn't you give us a specimen," Denis broke in--"a concrete
example?"

"Alas!" Mr. Scogan replied, "Knockespotch's great book is like the sword
Excalibur. It remains struck fast in this door, awaiting the coming of a
writer with genius enough to draw it forth. I am not even a writer, I
am not so much as qualified to attempt the task. The extraction of
Knockespotch from his wooden prison I leave, my dear Denis, to you."

"Thank you," said Denis.

CHAPTER XV.

"In the time of the amiable Brantome," Mr. Scogan was saying, "every
debutante at the French Court was invited to dine at the King's table,
where she was served with wine in a handsome silver cup of Italian
workmanship. It was no ordinary cup, this goblet of the debutantes;
for, inside, it had been most curiously and ingeniously engraved with a
series of very lively amorous scenes. With each draught that the young
lady swallowed these engravings became increasingly visible, and the
Court looked on with interest, every time she put her nose in the c