in two or three Tory newspapers, and had
produced a real sensation, of that mild sort which alone the British
public--that does not love lectures--is capable of receiving from the
report of one. Persons in the political world had relished its plain
speaking; dames and counsellors of the Primrose League had read the
praise with avidity, and skipped the criticism; while the mere men and
women of letters had appreciated a style crisp, unhackneyed, and alive.
The second lecture on "Lord George Bentinck" had been crowded, and the
crowd had included several Cabinet Ministers, and those great ladies of
the moment who gather like vultures to the feast on any similar
occasion. The third lecture, on "Palmerston and Lord John"--had been not
only crowded, but crowded out, and London was by now fully aware that it
possessed in Arthur Meadows a person capable of painting a series of La
Bruyere-like portraits of modern men, as vivid, biting, and
"topical"--_mutatis mutandis_--as the great French series were in their
day.

Applications for the coming lecture on "Lord Randolph" were arriving by
every post, and those to follow after--on men just dead, and others
still alive--would probably have to be given in a much larger hall than
that at present engaged, so certain was intelligent London that in going
to hear Arthur Meadows on the most admired--or the most
detested--personalities of the day, they at least ran no risk of
wishy-washy panegyric, or a dull caution. Meadows had proved himself
daring both in compliment and attack; nothing could be sharper than his
thrusts, or more Olympian than his homage. There were those indeed who
talked of "airs" and "mannerisms," but their faint voices were lost in
the general shouting.

"Wonderful!" said Doris, at last, looking up from the last of these
epistles. "I really didn't know, Arthur, you were such a great man."

Her eyes rested on him with a fond but rather puzzled expression.

"Well, of course, dear, you've always seen the seamy side of me," said
Meadows, with the slightest change of tone and a laugh. "Perhaps now
you'll believe me when I say that I'm not always lazy when I seem
so--that a man must have time to think, and smoke, and dawdle, if he's
to write anything decent, and can't always rush at the first job that
offers. When you thought I was idling--I wasn't! I was gathering up
impressions. Then came an attractive piece of work--one that suited
me--and I rose to it. There, you see