e background, or a child and a dog doing something funny. They
told him these things were wrong and made him buy "Impressions" that
stirred his liver to its deepest depths every time he looked at
them--green cows on red hills by pink moonlight, or scarlet-haired
corpses with three feet of neck.

He said meekly that such seemed to him unnatural, but they answered that
nature had nothing to do with the question; that the artist saw things
like that, and that whatever an artist saw--no matter in what condition
he may have been when he saw it--that was art.

They took him to Wagner festivals and Burne-Jones's private views. They
read him all the minor poets. They booked seats for him at all Ibsen's
plays. They introduced him into all the most soulful circles of artistic
society. His days were one long feast of other people's enjoyments.

One morning I met him coming down the steps of the Arts Club. He looked
weary. He was just off to a private view at the New Gallery. In the
afternoon he had to attend an amateur performance of "The Cenci," given
by the Shelley Society. Then followed three literary and artistic At
Homes, a dinner with an Indian nabob who couldn't speak a word of
English, "Tristam and Isolde" at Covent Garden Theatre, and a ball at
Lord Salisbury's to wind up the day.

I laid my hand upon his shoulder.

"Come with me to Epping Forest," I said. "There's a four-horse brake
starts from Charing Cross at eleven. It's Saturday, and there's bound to
be a crowd down there. I'll play you a game of skittles, and we will
have a shy at the cocoa-nuts. You used to be rather smart at cocoa-nuts.
We can have lunch there and be back at seven, dine at the Troc., spend
the evening at the Empire, and sup at the Savoy. What do you say?"

He stood hesitating on the steps, a wistful look in his eyes.

His brougham drew up against the curb, and he started as if from a dream.

"My dear fellow," he replied, "what would people say?" And shaking me by
the hand, he took his seat, and the footman slammed the door upon him.

A MAN OF HABIT

There were three of us in the smoke-room of the _Alexandra_--a very good
friend of mine, myself, and, in the opposite corner, a shy-looking,
unobtrusive man, the editor, as we subsequently learned, of a New York
Sunday paper.

My friend and I were discussing habits, good and bad.

"After the first few months," said my friend, "it is no more effort for a
man to be a s