n you to see yourself reproduced over and over
again, and in innumerable ridiculous ways. For instance, there is
Dr. PEAGAM, the celebrated author of _Indo-Hebraic Fairy Tales: a new
Theory of their Rise and Development, with an Excursus on an Early
Aryan Version of_ "_Three Blind Mice_." Dr. PEAGAM is learned; he has
the industry of a beaver; he is a correspondent of goodness knows how
many foreign philosophical, philological, and mythological societies;
his record of University distinctions has never been equalled; his
advice has been sought by German Professors. Yet he carries all this
weight of celebrity and learning as lightly as if it were a wideawake,
and seems to think nothing of it. But he has his weak point, and, like
Achilles, he has it in his feet.

This veteran investigator, this hoary and venerable Doctor, would
cheerfully give years off his life if only the various philosophers
who from time to time sit at his feet would recognise that those feet
are small, and compliment him on the fact. They _are_ small, there is
no doubt of it, but not small enough to be encased without agony in
the tiny, natty, pointed boots that he habitually wears. Let anybody
who wants to get anything out of Dr. PEAGAM lead the conversation
craftily on to the subject of feet and their proper size. Let him then
make the discovery (aloud) that the Doctor's feet are extraordinarily
small and beautiful, and I warrant that there is nothing the
Doctor can bestow which shall not be freely offered to this cunning
flatterer. That is why Dr. PEAGAM, a modest man in most respects,
always insists on sitting in the front row on any platform, and
ostentatiously dusts his boots with a red silk pocket-handkerchief.

Then, again, who is there that has not heard of Major-General
WHACKLEY, V.C., the hero who captured the ferocious Ameer of Mudwallah
single-handed, and carried him on his back to the English camp--the
man to whose dauntless courage, above all others, the marvellous
victory of Pilferabad was due? Speak to him on military matters,
and you will find the old warrior as shy as a school-girl; but only
mention the word poetry, and you'll have him reciting his ballads and
odes to you by the dozen, and declaiming for hours together about the
obtuseness of the publishing fraternity.

I don't speak now of literary men who value themselves above LAMB,
DICKENS, and THACKERAY, rolled into one; nor of artists who sneer at
TITIAN; nor of actors who