ALGERNON look,
that I afterwards ventured to remonstrate mildly with the gadfly
MIGGS.

"What?" he said, "made him uncomfortable, did I? And a jolly good job
too. Bless you, I know the beggar through and through. I wasn't at
Oxford with him for nothing. Wish I had been. He's the sort of chap
who loses no end of I.O.U.'s at cards one night, and when he wins
piles of ready the next never offers to redeem them. You let me
alone about ALGY. I tell you I know him. There's no bigger humbug in
Christendom with all his soft sawder and gas about everybody being the
dearest and cleverest fellow he's ever met. Bah!"

And therewith SAMMY left me, evidently smarting under some ancient
sore inflicted by the apparently angelic ALGERNON.

However, this little incident was not the one I intended to narrate.
I met ALGY, as I said, about a month ago. It was in Piccadilly. At
first, as I approached, I thought he did not see me, but suddenly
he seemed to become aware of my presence. An electric thrill of joy
ran through him, a smile of heavenly welcome irradiated his face, he
darted towards me with both hands stretched out and almost fell round
my neck before all the astonished cabmen.

"My dear, dear fellow," he gasped, apparently struggling hard with an
overpowering emotion, "this is almost too much. To think that I should
meet the one man of all others whom I have been literally longing to
see. Now you simply must walk with me for a bit. I can't afford to let
you go without having a good talk with you. It always refreshes me so
to hear your opinions of men and things."

Ignoring my assurance that I had an important appointment to keep,
he linked his arm closely in mine and dragged me with him in the
direction from which I had come. How he pattered and chattered
and flattered. He daubed me over with flattery as I have seen
bill-stickers brush a hoarding over with paste. Never in my life had
I felt so small, so mean and such a perfect fool, for though I own
I have no objection to an occasional lollipop of praise, I must say
I loathe it in lumps the size of a jelly-fish. Yet such is the fare
on which JESSAMY compels me to subsist. And the annoying part of
it was that every lump which he crammed down my throat contained
an inferential compliment to himself, which I was forced either
to accept, or in declining it to appear a churl. I was never more
churlish, never less satisfied with myself. Amongst other things we
spoke of the affair