llence. Devenish was the type.
He was not hampered with the possession of intelligence. Wit he had,
but it was not his own. The man, after all, who can echo the wit of
others and suit its application to the moment is a man of no little
accomplishment. The least that can be said of him is that he is worthy
of his place at a dinner-table where conversation is as empty as the
bubbles that shoot through the glittering wine to the frothy surface.
To suffer from intelligence in such an atmosphere as this is a
disease--the silent sickness--of which such symptoms as the lips
tight bound, the heart heavy, and an aching void behind the eyes,
are common to all its victims. Later, in the course of its development,
if the attack is acute, comes the forced speech from lips now scarcely
opened--forced speech recognizable by its various degrees of
imbecility. The man, for instance, who asks you if you have been to
a theatre lately when you have just deftly foisted upon the company
the latest joke you heard in a musical comedy, has reached that stage
of the disease when retirement is the only cure. Like quinine in fever
districts, there is one drug which may ward off the icy fingers of
the complaint--champagne--but it should be administered at frequent
intervals.

From such a malady as this, Devenish was not only immune, but he
carried with him that lightness of spirit which may go far to relieve
others of their suffering. Add to this a face well-featured, a figure
well-planned with all the alertness of an athlete, an immaculate
taste in dress, and you have the type which the 'Varsity mould offers
yearly to the ephemeral needs of her country. The impression remains,
stamped upon the man until he is well-nigh forty. He knows how to
get drunk in the most gentlemanly way and his judgment about women
is sometimes very shrewd. A knowledge of the classics is of service
to him if he does nothing. If, on the other hand, he sets about the
earning of his living--a drudgery that some of these youths are
compelled to submit to--the classics are only the peas in the shoe
which, as a pilgrim to the far-off shrine of utility, he is compelled
to wear.

Not having to earn his own livelihood, or rather, having already
earned it in the profession of matrimony into which he had entered
in partnership with a wealthy woman, Devenish was a pride to the
college which had turned him out.

He knew most of those people in London who range in the category
of-