for a slight washing of
hands, as who should say, on their part as representing the gentle
deprecation of, I assure you, the respectable body in Suffolk Street.

Well, no!--It was doubtless adjudged wiser, or milder, to "live it
down," and now it, I really believe, behoves me, in a weary way,
to remind you of the document in question, and, for the sake of
commonplace, uninteresting, and foolish fact, to lift up my parable
and declare fallacious that which was supposed to be true, and
generally to bore myself, and perhaps even you, the all-patient one,
with what, I fear, we others care but little for--parish matters.

In the article, then, entitled "The Royal Society of British Artists
and its Future--An Interview with the New President"--a most appalling
volley of figures was fired off at _brule-pour-point_ distance. Under
this deafening detonation I, having no habit, sat for days
incapable--dreaming vaguely that when a President should see fit to
wash his people's linen in the open, there must be indeed crime at
least on the part of the offender at whose instigation such official
sacrifice of dignity could come about. _I_ was the offender, and for a
while I sincerely believed that disaster had been brought upon this
Royal Society by my own casual self. But behold, upon closer
inspection, these threatening figures are meretricious and misleading,
as was the building account of the early Philanthropist who, in the
days of St. Paul, meant well, and was abruptly discouraged by that
clear-headed apostle.

Mr. Bayliss tells us that: "The sales of the Society during the
year 1881 were under," whatever that may mean, "L5000; 1882, under
L6000; 1883, under L7000; 1884, under L8000; in 1885 ('the first year
of Mr. Whistler's rule') they fell to under L4000; 1886, under L3000;
1887, under L2000; and the present year, under L1000."

But also Mr. Bayliss takes this rare occasion of attention, to assert
his various qualifications for his post as head of painters in the
street of Suffolk, and so we learn that he is:--

"Chairman of the Board-school in his own district," "Champion
chess-player of Surrey," "A member of the Diocesan Council of
Rochester," "Fellow of the Society of Cyclists," and "Public Orator of
Noviomagus."

As chess-player he may have intuitively bethought himself of a
move--possibly the happy one,--who knows?--which in the provinces
obtained him a cup; as Diocesan Councilman he may have supposed
Rochester in