n and bustling
bowling-green of Canonbury Tavern; "a fellow might get a good chapter
out of this scene. I could do it, but I will not. What is the use of
lavishing one's brains on an ungrateful world? Why, if that fellow Gushy
were to write a description of this place, which he would do like a
penny-a-liner drunk with ginger beer, every countess in Mayfair would be
reading him, not knowing, the idiot, whether she ought to smile or shed
tears, and sending him cards with 'at home' upon them as large as life.
Oh! it is disgusting! absolutely disgusting. It is a nefarious world,
sir. You will find it out some day. I am as much robbed by that fellow
Gushy as men are on the highway. He is appropriating my income, and
the income of thousands of honest fellows. And then he pretends he is
writing for the people! The people! What does he know about the people?
Annals of the New Cut and Saffron Hill. He thinks he will frighten some
lord, who will ask him to dinner. And that he calls Progress. I hardly
know which is the worst class in this country--the aristocracy, the
middle class, or what they call the people. I hate them all."

About the fall of the leaf the offices were all filled again, and among
the rest Trenchard returned. "His brother has been ill," said St. Barbe.
"They say that Trenchard is very fond of him. Fond of a brother who
keeps him out of four thousand pounds per annum! What will man not
say? And yet I could not go and congratulate Trenchard on his brother's
death. It would be 'bad taste.' Trenchard would perhaps never speak to
me again, though he had been lying awake all night chuckling over the
event. And Gushy takes an amiable view of this world of hypocrisy and
plunder. And that is why Gushy is so popular!"

There was one incident at the beginning of November, which eventually
exercised no mean influence on the life of Endymion. Trenchard offered
one evening to introduce him as a guest to a celebrated debating
society, of which Trenchard was a distinguished member. This society had
grown out of the Union at Cambridge, and was originally intended to have
been a metropolitan branch of that famous association. But in process
of time it was found that such a constitution was too limited to ensure
those numbers and that variety of mind desirable in such an institution.
It was therefore opened to the whole world duly qualified. The
predominant element, however, for a long time consisted of Cambridge
men.

This so