er, to which he almost succeeds in imparting a natural
air, and he studiously refrains from saying or doing anything which,
since it may cause other men to provoke him, may possibly result in
his being forced to pretend that he himself has been ruffled. Yet it
must be added that he is always thoroughly harmless. He flutters about
innumerable dovecots, without ever fluttering those who dwell in them,
and, in course of time, he comes to be known and accepted everywhere
as a useful man. As might be supposed, he is never obtrusively manly.
The rough pursuits of the merely athletic repel him, yet he has the
knack of assuming an interest where he feels it not, and is able to
prattle quite pleasantly about sports in which he takes little or no
active part. At the same time it must be admitted that he holds a gun
fairly straight, and does not disgrace himself when the necessity
of slaughtering a friend's pheasants interrupts for a few hours the
rehearsals of private theatricals, in company with the friend's wife.
Certainly he is not a fool. He gauges with great accuracy his own
capacities, and carefully limits his ambition to those smaller desires
which, since they exact no vaulting power, are never likely to bring
about a fall on the other side. The objects of his admiration are
mean; and since he meanly admires them, he comes quite naturally under
the Thackerayan definition of a Snob.

Whilst he is still a year or two on the fair side of thirty, it may
happen that a turn of the political wheel will bring into high office
a statesman who is quite willing to be served by those who are able
to make themselves useful to him, without exacting from them solidity
either of character or of attainments. With him the Servant of
Society, with an instinct that does credit to his discernment, will
have established friendly relations. The politician was first amused
and then impressed by his versatility; now, having the opportunity,
he offers to him the position of Assistant Private Secretary (unpaid),
and it is scarcely necessary to say that the young man accepts it
with a gratitude which proves that he believes his patron capable
of conferring further favours. From this time forward he begins to
abandon the merely frivolous air that has hitherto distinguished him.
He lays in a mixed stock of solemnity, mystery, and importance, and
occasionally awes the friends of his flippant days by assuming the
reticent look and the shake of the head o