ut don't know him. We met once and he
bragged preposterously about his Arab ponies. I was at that time editor
of _The Evening News_: and Mr. Blunt tried hard to talk down to my
level."

"He is by way of being a poet, and he has a very real love of
literature."

"I know," I said; "I really know his work and a good deal about him and
have nothing but praise for the way he championed the Egyptians, and for
his poetry when he has anything to say."

"Well, Frank, he had a sort of club at Crabbett Park, a club for poets,
to which only poets were invited, and he was a most admirable and
perfect host. Lady Blunt could never make out what he was up to. He used
to get us all down to Crabbett, and the poet who was received last had
to make a speech about the new poet--a speech in which he was supposed
to tell the truth about the new-comer. Blunt took the idea, no doubt,
from the custom of the French Academy. Well, he asked me down to
Crabbett Park, and George Curzon, if you please, was the poet picked to
make the speech about me."

"Good God," I cried, "Curzon a poet. It's like Kitchener being taken for
a great captain, or Salisbury for a statesman."

"He writes verses, Frank, but of course there is not a line of poetry in
him: his verses are good enough though, well-turned, I mean, and sharp,
if not witty. Well, Curzon had to make this speech about me after
dinner. We had a delightful dinner, quite perfect, and then Curzon got
up. He had evidently prepared his speech carefully, it was bristling
with innuendoes; sneering side-hits at strange sins. Everyone looked at
his fellow and thought the speech the height of bad taste.

"Mediocrity always detests ability, and loathes genius; Curzon wanted to
prove to himself that at any rate in the moralities he was my superior.

"When he sat down I had to answer him. That was the programme. Of course
I had not prepared a speech, had not thought about Curzon, or what he
might say, but I got up, Frank, and told the kindliest truth about him,
and everyone took it for the bitterest sarcasm, and cheered and cheered
me, though what I said was merely the truth. I told how difficult it was
for Curzon to work and study at Oxford. Everyone wanted to know him
because of his position, because he was going into Parliament, and
certain to make a great figure there; and everyone tried to make up to
him, but he knew that he must not yield to such seduction, so he sat in
his room with a wet towel abo