trip, but I did not commit myself when appealed to for an
opinion. I had once known the man (which, however, I did not think it
worth while to mention) and I did not feel justified in criticising him
in public. Besides, what I knew of him was excellent, and entirely apart
from the literary merit or demerit of his work. The others, however,
were within their right when they censured or praised him, and they did
both. Farrar, in particular, surprised me by the violence of his
attacks, while Miss Trevor took up the Celebrity's defence with equal
ardor. Her motives were beyond me now. The Celebrity's works spoke
for themselves, she said, and she could not and would not believe such
injurious reports of one who wrote as he did.

The next day I went over to the county-seat, and got back to Asquith
after dark. I dined alone, and afterwards I was strolling up and down
one end of the long veranda when I caught sight of a lonely figure in a
corner, with chair tilted back and feet on the rail. A gleam of a cigar
lighted up the face, and I saw that it was Farrar. I sat down beside
him, and we talked commonplaces for a while, Farrar's being almost
monosyllabic, while now and again feminine voices and feminine laughter
reached our ears from the far end of the porch. They seemed to go
through Farrar like a knife, and he smoked furiously, his lips tightly
compressed the while. I had a dozen conjectures, none of which I dared
voice. So I waited in patience.

"Crocker," said he, at length, "there's a man here from Boston, Charles
Wrexell Allen; came this morning. You know Boston. Have you ever heard
of him?"

"Allen," I repeated, reflecting; "no Charles Wrexell."

"It is Charles Wrexell, I think," said Farrar, as though the matter were
trivial. "However, we can go into the register and make sure."

"What about him?" I asked, not feeling inclined to stir.

The Celebrity

"Oh, nothing. An arrival is rather an occurrence, though. You can hear
him down there now," he added, tossing his head towards the other end of
the porch, "with the women around him."

In fact, I did catch the deeper sound of a man's voice among the lighter
tones, and the voice had a ring to it which was not wholly unfamiliar,
although I could not place it.

I threw Farrar a bait.

"He must make friends easily," I said.

"With the women?--yes," he replied, so scathingly that I was forced to
laugh in spite of myself.

"Let us go in and look at the register,