was very enthusiastic and
uncomfortable. It was with intense relief that I beheld the title-page
of yet another volume which (silently, this time) he laid before me--The
Country Wench. 'This of course I have read,' I heartily shouted.

Swinburne stepped back. 'You have? You have read it? Where?' he cried,
in evident dismay.

Something was wrong. Had I not, I quickly wondered, read this play? 'Oh
yes,' I shouted, 'I have read it.'

'But when? Where?' entreated Swinburne, adding that he had supposed it
to be the sole copy extant.

I floundered. I wildly said I thought I must have read it years ago in
the Bodleian. 'Theodore! Do you hear this? It seems that they have now
a copy of "The Country Wench" in the Bodleian! Mr. Beerbohm found one
there--oh when? in what year?' he appealed to me.

I said it might have been six, seven, eight years ago. Swinburne knew
for certain that no copy had been there twelve years ago, and was
surprised that he had not heard of the acquisition. 'They might have
told me,' he wailed.

I sacrificed myself on the altar of sympathy. I admitted that I might
have been mistaken--must have been--must have confused this play with
some other. I dipped into the pages and 'No,' I shouted, 'this I have
never read.'

His equanimity was restored. He was up the ladder and down again,
showing me further treasures with all pride and ardour. At length,
Watts-Dunton, afraid that his old friend would tire himself, arose from
his corner, and presently he and I went downstairs to the dining-room.
It was in the course of our session together that there suddenly flashed
across my mind the existence of a play called 'The Country Wife,'
by--wasn't it Wycherley? I had once read it--or read something about
it.... But this matter I kept to myself. I thought I had appeared fool
enough already.

I loved those sessions in that Tupperossettine dining-room, lair of
solid old comfort and fervid old romanticism. Its odd duality befitted
well its owner. The distinguished critic and poet, Rossetti's closest
friend and Swinburne's, had been, for a while, in the dark ages, a
solicitor; and one felt he had been a good one. His frock-coat, though
the Muses had crumpled it, inspired confidence in his judgment of other
things than verse. But let there be no mistake. He was no mere bourgeois
parnassien, as his enemies insinuated. No doubt he had been very useful
to men of genius, in virtue of qualities they lacked, but the secre