nnocence, and would take you to
breakfast at the coffee-shop off the Mile End Road where "Sam. Smith,
Estd. 1820," own brother to the world-famed society novelist,
Smith-Stratford, lived an uncriticised, unparagraphed, unphotographed
existence upon the profits of "rashers" at three-ha'pence and
"door-steps" at two a penny. He knew at what houses it was inadvisable
to introduce soap, and at what tables it would be bad form to denounce
political jobbery. He could tell you offhand what trade-mark went with
what crest, and remembered the price paid for every baronetcy created
during the last twenty-five years.

Regarding himself, he might have made claim with King Charles never to
have said a foolish thing, and never to have done a wise one. He
despised, or affected to despise, most of his fellow-men, and those of
his fellow-men whose opinion was most worth having unaffectedly despised
him.

Shortly described, one might have likened him to a Gaiety Johnny with
brains. He was capital company after dinner, but in the early morning
one avoided him.

So I thought of him until one day he fell in love; or to put it in the
words of Teddy Tidmarsh, who brought the news to us, "got mashed on Gerty
Lovell."

"The red-haired one," Teddy explained, to distinguish her from her
sister, who had lately adopted the newer golden shade.

"Gerty Lovell!" exclaimed the captain, "why, I've always been told the
Lovell girls hadn't a penny among them."

"The old man's stone broke, I know for a certainty," volunteered Teddy,
who picked up a mysterious but, in other respects, satisfactory income in
an office near Hatton Garden, and who was candour itself concerning the
private affairs of everybody but himself.

"Oh, some rich pork-packing or diamond-sweating uncle has cropped up in
Australia, or America, or one of those places," suggested the captain,
"and Billy's got wind of it in good time. Billy knows his way about."

We agreed that some such explanation was needed, though in all other
respects Gerty Lovell was just the girl that Reason (not always consulted
on these occasions) might herself have chosen for "Blase Billy's" mate.

The sunlight was not too kind to her, but at evening parties, where the
lighting has been well considered, I have seen her look quite girlish. At
her best she was not beautiful, but at her worst there was about her an
air of breeding and distinction that always saved her from being passed
over, and she d