could get up surprise parties, which really
bored him, carry out elaborate practical jokes, give extraordinary
entertainments at will. For his parents acquiesced in his absurdities,
were even rather proud of them, thinking that he followed his
Will-o'-the-wisp of a fancy because he was not less, but more, than
other young men. In fact, they supposed he must be a genius because he
was erratic. Many people are of the same opinion, and declare that a
goose standing on its head must be a swan. By degrees Eustace Lane's
practical jokes became a common topic of conversation in London, and
smart circles were in a perpetual state of mild excitement as to what
he would do next. It was said that he had put the latchkey of a Duchess
down the back of a Commander-in-Chief; that he had once, in a country
house, prepared an apple-pie bed for an Heir-apparent, and that he had
declared he would journey to Rome next Easter in order to present a
collection of penny toys to the Pope. Society loves folly if it is
sufficiently blatant. The folly of Eustace was just blatant enough to
be more than tolerated--enjoyed. He had by practice acquired a knack
of being silly in unexpected ways, and so a great many people honestly
considered him one of the cleverest young men in town.

But, you know, it is the proper thing, if you wear a mask, to have a sad
face behind it. Eustace sometimes felt sad, and sometimes fatigued. He
had worked a little to make his reputation, but it was often hard labour
to live up to it. His profession of a buffoon sometimes exhausted him,
but he could no longer dare to be like others. The self-conscious live
to gratify the changing expectations of their world, and Eustace had
educated himself into a self-consciousness that was almost a disease.

And, then, there was his place in the pages of _Vanity Fair_ to be won.
He put that in front of him as his aim in life, and became daily more
and more whimsical.

Nevertheless, he did one prosaic thing. He fell in love with Winifred
Ames, and could not help showing it. As the malady increased upon him
his reputation began to suffer eclipse, for he relapsed into sentiment,
and even allowed his eyes to grow large and lover-like. He ceased to
worry people, and so began to bore them--a much more dangerous thing.
For a moment he even ran the fearful risk of becoming wholly natural,
dropping his mask, and showing himself as he really was, a rather dull,
quite normal young man, with th