University of Virginia Library

30. CHAPTER XXX.
OPENING WITH A POETICAL EULOGY OF THE PRESS AND CONTINUING
WITH TALK INSPIRED BY THE SAME.

“`Praise be unto the press, not Faust's, but Noah's;
let us extol and magnify the press, the true press of
Noah, from which breaketh the true morning. Praise
be unto the press, not the black press but the red;
let us extol and magnify the press, the red press of Noah,
from which cometh inspiration. Ye pressmen of the
Rhineland and the Rhine, join in with all ye who tread
out the glad tidings on isle Madeira or Mitylene.—Who
giveth redness of eyes by making men long to tarry at
the fine print?—Praise be unto the press, the rosy press
of Noah, which giveth rosiness of hearts, by making men
long to tarry at the rosy wine.—Who hath babblings and
contentions? Who, without cause, inflicteth wounds?
Praise be unto the press, the kindly press of Noah,
which knitteth friends, which fuseth foes.—Who may be
bribed?—Who may be bound?—Praise be unto the press,
the free press of Noah, which will not lie for tyrants,
but make tyrants speak the truth.—Then praise be unto
the press, the frank old press of Noah; then let us
extol and magnify the press, the brave old press of Noah;

then let us with roses garland and enwreath the press,
the grand old press of Noah, from which flow streams of
knowledge which give man a bliss no more unreal than
his pain.'”

“You deceived me,” smiled the cosmopolitan, as both
now resumed their seats; “you roguishly took advantage
of my simplicity; you archly played upon my enthusiasm.
But never mind; the offense, if any, was so charming,
I almost wish you would offend again. As for certain
poetic left-handers in your panegyric, those I cheerfully
concede to the indefinite privileges of the poet. Upon
the whole, it was quite in the lyric style—a style I always
admire on account of that spirit of Sibyllic confidence
and assurance which is, perhaps, its prime ingredient.
But come,” glancing at his companion's glass, “for a
lyrist, you let the bottle stay with you too long.”

“The lyre and the vine forever!” cried the other in
his rapture, or what seemed such, heedless of the hint,
“the vine, the vine! is it not the most graceful and
bounteous of all growths? And, by its being such, is
not something meant—divinely meant? As I live, a
vine, a Catawba vine, shall be planted on my grave!

“A genial thought; but your glass there.”

“Oh, oh,” taking a moderate sip, “but you, why don't
you drink?”

“You have forgotten, my dear Charlie, what I told
you of my previous convivialities to-day.”

“Oh,” cried the other, now in manner quite abandoned
to the lyric mood, not without contrast to the easy
sociability of his companion. “Oh, one can't drink too

much of good old wine—the genuine, mellow old port.
Pooh, pooh! drink away.”

“Then keep me company.”

“Of course,” with a flourish, taking another sip—
“suppose we have cigars. Never mind your pipe there;
a pipe is best when alone. I say, waiter, bring some
cigars—your best.”

They were brought in a pretty little bit of western
pottery, representing some kind of Indian utensil, mummy-colored,
set down in a mass of tobacco leaves, whose
long, green fans, fancifully grouped, formed with peeps
of red the sides of the receptacle.

Accompanying it were two accessories, also bits of
pottery, but smaller, both globes; one in guise of an
apple flushed with red and gold to the life, and, through
a cleft at top, you saw it was hollow. This was for the
ashes. The other, gray, with wrinkled surface, in the
likeness of a wasp's nest, was the match-box.

“There,” said the stranger, pushing over the cigar-stand,
“help yourself, and I will touch you off,” taking
a match. “Nothing like tobacco,” he added, when the
fumes of the cigar began to wreathe, glancing from the
smoker to the pottery, “I will have a Virginia tobacco-plant
set over my grave beside the Catawba vine.”

“Improvement upon your first idea, which by itself
was good—but you don't smoke.”

“Presently, presently—let me fill your glass again.
You don't drink.”

“Thank you; but no more just now. Fill your
glass.”

“Presently, presently; do you drink on. Never
mind me. Now that it strikes me, let me say, that he
who, out of superfine gentility or fanatic morality,
denies himself tobacco, suffers a more serious abatement
in the cheap pleasures of life than the dandy in his iron
boot, or the celibate on his iron cot. While for him
who would fain revel in tobacco, but cannot, it is a thing
at which philanthropists must weep, to see such an one,
again and again, madly returning to the cigar, which,
for his incompetent stomach, he cannot enjoy, while
still, after each shameful repulse, the sweet dream of
the impossible good goads him on to his fierce misery
once more—poor eunuch!”

“I agree with you,” said the cosmopolitan, still gravely
social, “but you don't smoke.”

“Presently, presently, do you smoke on. As I was
saying about—”

“But why don't you smoke—come. You don't think
that tobacco, when in league with wine, too much enhances
the latter's vinous quality—in short, with certain
constitutions tends to impair self-possession, do you?”

“To think that, were treason to good fellowship,”
was the warm disclaimer. “No, no. But the fact is,
there is an unpropitious flavor in my mouth just now.
Ate of a diabolical ragout at dinner, so I shan't smoke
till I have washed away the lingering memento of it
with wine. But smoke away, you, and pray, don't
forget to drink. By-the-way, while we sit here so
companionably, giving loose to any companionable
nothing, your uncompanionable friend, Coonskins, is, by

pure contrast, brought to recollection. If he were but
here now, he would see how much of real heart-joy he
denies himself by not hob-a-nobbing with his kind.”

“Why,” with loitering emphasis, slowly withdrawing
his cigar, “I thought I had undeceived you there. I
thought you had come to a better understanding of my
eccentric friend.”

“Well, I thought so, too; but first impressions will
return, you know. In truth, now that I think of it, I
am led to conjecture from chance things which dropped
from Coonskins, during the little interview I had with
him, that he is not a Missourian by birth, but years ago
came West here, a young misanthrope from the other
side of the Alleghanies, less to make his fortune, than to
flee man. Now, since they say trifles sometimes effect
great results, I shouldn't wonder, if his history were
probed, it would be found that what first indirectly gave
his sad bias to Coonskins was his disgust at reading in boyhood
the advice of Polonius to Laertes—advice which, in
the selfishness it inculcates, is almost on a par with a sort
of ballad upon the economies of money-making, to be
occasionally seen pasted against the desk of small retail
traders in New England.”

“I do hope now, my dear fellew,” said the cosmopolitan
with an air of bland protest, “that, in my presence
at least, you will throw out nothing to the prejudice of
the sons of the Puritans.”

“Hey-day and high times indeed,” exclaimed the
other, nettled, “sons of the Puritans forsooth! And
who be Puritans, that I, an Alabamaian, must do them

reverence? A set of sourly conceited old Malvolios,
whom Shakespeare laughs his fill at in his comedies.”

“Pray, what were you about to suggest with regard
to Polonius,” observed the cosmopolitan with quiet forbearance,
expressive of the patience of a superior mind
at the petulance of an inferior one; “how do you characterize
his advice to Laertes?”

“As false, fatal, and calumnious,” exclaimed the other,
with a degree of ardor befitting one resenting a stigma
upon the family escutcheon, “and for a father to give
his son—monstrous. The case you see is this: The son
is going abroad, and for the first. What does the father?
Invoke God's blessing upon him? Put the blessed Bible
in his trunk? No. Crams him with maxims smacking
of my Lord Chesterfield, with maxims of France, with
maxims of Italy.”

“No, no, be charitable, not that. Why, does he not
among other things say:—

Is that compatible with maxims of Italy?”

“Yes it is, Frank. Don't you see? Laertes is to
take the best of care of his friends—his proved friends,
on the same principal that a wine-corker takes the best
of care of his proved bottles. When a bottle gets a
sharp knock and don't break, he says, `Ah, I'll keep that
bottle.' Why? Because he loves it? No, he has particular
use for it.”

“Dear, dear!” appealingly turning in distress, “that
—that kind of criticism is—is—in fact—it won't do.”

“Won't truth do, Frank? You are so charitable with
everybody, do but consider the tone of the speech.
Now I put it to you, Frank; is there anything in it
hortatory to high, heroic, disinterested effort? Anything
like `sell all thou hast and give to the poor?' And,
in other points, what desire seems most in the father's
mind, that his son should cherish nobleness for himself,
or be on his guard against the contrary thing in others?
An irreligious warner, Frank—no devout counselor, is
Polonius. I hate him. Nor can I bear to hear your
veterans of the world affirm, that he who steers through
life by the advice of old Polonius will not steer among
the breakers.”

“No, no—I hope nobody affirms that,” rejoined the
cosmopolitan, with tranquil abandonment; sideways reposing
his arm at full length upon the table. “I hope
nobody affirms that; because, if Polonius' advice be
taken in your sense, then the recommendation of it by
men of experience would appear to involve more or less
of an unhandsome sort of reflection upon human nature.
And yet,” with a perplexed air, “your suggestions have
put things in such a strange light to me as in fact a
little to disturb my previous notions of Polonius and
what he says. To be frank, by your ingenuity you have
unsettled me there, to that degree that were it not for
our coincidence of opinion in general, I should almost
think I was now at length beginning to feel the ill effect
of an immature mind, too much consorting with a

mature one, except on the ground of first principles in
common.”

“Really and truly,” cried the other with a kind of
tickled modesty and pleased concern, “mine is an understanding
too weak to throw out grapnels and hug another
to it. I have indeed heard of some great scholars
in these days, whose boast is less that they have made
disciples than victims. But for me, had I the power to
do such things, I have not the heart to desire.”

“I believe you, my dear Charlie. And yet, I repeat,
by your commentaries on Polonius you have, I know
not how, unsettled me; so that now I don't exactly see
how Shakespeare meant the words he puts in Polonius'
mouth.”

“Some say that he meant them to open people's eyes;
but I don't think so.”

“Open their eyes?” echoed the cosmopolitan, slowly
expanding his; “what is there in this world for one to
open his eyes to? I mean in the sort of invidious sense
you cite?”

“Well, others say he meant to corrupt people's morals;
and still others, that he had no express intention at
all, but in effect opens their eyes and corrupts their
morals in one operation. All of which I reject.”

“Of course you reject so crude an hypothesis; and yet,
to confess, in reading Shakespeare in my closet, struck
by some passage, I have laid down the volume, and said:
`This Shakespeare is a queer man.' At times seeming
irresponsible, he does not always seem reliable. There
appears to be a certain—what shall I call it?—hidden

sun, say, about him, at once enlightening and mystifying.
Now, I should be afraid to say what I have sometimes
thought that hidden sun might be.”

“Do you think it was the true light?” with clandestine
geniality again filling the other's glass.

“I would prefer to decline answering a categorical
question there. Shakespeare has got to be a kind of
deity. Prudent minds, having certain latent thoughts
concerning him, will reserve them in a condition of lasting
probation. Still, as touching avowable speculations,
we are permitted a tether. Shakespeare himself is to be
adored, not arraigned; but, so we do it with humility, we
may a little canvass his characters. There's his Autolycus
now, a fellow that always puzzled me. How is one
to take Autolycus? A rogue so happy, so lucky, so
triumphant, of so almost captivatingly vicious a career
that a virtuous man reduced to the poor-house (were
such a contingency conceivable), might almost long to
change sides with him. And yet, see the words put into
his mouth: `Oh,' cries Autolycus, as he comes galloping,
gay as a buck, upon the stage, `oh,' he laughs, `oh what
a fool is Honesty, and Trust, his sworn brother, a very
simple gentleman.' Think of that. Trust, that is, confidence—that
is, the thing in this universe the sacredest—
is rattingly pronounced just the simplest. And the
scenes in which the rogue figures seem purposely devised
for verification of his principles. Mind, Charlie, I
do not say it is so, far from it; but I do say it seems so.
Yes, Autolycus would seem a needy varlet acting upon
the persuasion that less is to be got by invoking pockets

than picking them, more to be made by an expert knave
than a bungling beggar; and for this reason, as he
thinks, that the soft heads outnumber the soft hearts.
The devil's drilled recruit, Autolycus is joyous as if he
wore the livery of heaven. When disturbed by the
character and career of one thus wicked and thus happy,
my sole consolation is in the fact that no such creature
ever existed, except in the powerful imagination which
evoked him. And yet, a creature, a living creature, he
is, though only a poet was his maker. It may be, that
in that paper-and-ink investiture of his, Autolycus acts
more effectively upon mankind than he would in a flesh-and-blood
one. Can his influence be salutary? True,
in Autolycus there is humor; but though, according to
my principle, humor is in general to be held a saving
quality, yet the case of Autolycus is an exception;
because it is his humor which, so to speak, oils his
mischievousness. The bravadoing mischievousness of
Autolycus is slid into the world on humor, as a pirate
schooner, with colors flying, is launched into the sea on
greased ways.”

“I approve of Autolycus as little as you,” said the
stranger, who, during his companion's commonplaces,
had seemed less attentive to them than to maturing with
in his own mind the original conceptions destined to
eclipse them. “But I cannot believe that Autolycus,
mischievous as he must prove upon the stage, can be
near so much so as such a character as Polonius.”

“I don't know about that,” bluntly, and yet not
impolitely, returned the cosmopolitan; “to be sure, accepting

your view of the old courtier, then if between
him and Autolycus you raise the question of unprepossessingness,
I grant you the latter comes off best. For a
moist rogue may tickle the midriff, while a dry worldling
may but wrinkle the spleen.”

“But Polonius is not dry,” said the other excitedly;
“he drules. One sees the fly-blown old fop drule and
look wise. His vile wisdom is made the viler by his
vile rheuminess. The bowing and cringing, time-serving
old sinner—is such an one to give manly precepts to
youth? The discreet, decorous, old dotard-of-state;
senile prudence; fatuous soullessness! The ribanded
old dog is paralytic all down one side, and that the side
of nobleness. His soul is gone out. Only nature's automatonism
keeps him on his legs. As with some old
trees, the bark survives the pith, and will still stand
stiffly up, though but to rim round punk, so the body
of old Polonius has outlived his soul.”

“Come, come,” said the cosmopolitan with serious air,
almost displeased; “though I yield to none in admiration
of earnestness, yet, I think, even earnestness may have
limits. To human minds, strong language is always
more or less distressing. Besides, Polonius is an old
man—as I remember him upon the stage—with snowy
locks. Now charity requires that such a figure—think
of it how you will—should at least be treated with
civility. Moreover, old age is ripeness, and I once
heard say, `Better ripe than raw.'”

“But not better rotten than raw!” bringing down his
hand with energy on the table.

“Why, bless me,” in mild surprise contemplating his
heated comrade, “how you fly out against this unfortunate
Polonius—a being that never was, nor will be.
And yet, viewed in a Christian light,” he added pensively,
“I don't know that anger against this man of straw
is a whit less wise than anger against a man of flesh.
Madness, to be mad with anything.”

“That may be, or may not be,” returned the other, a
little testily, perhaps; “but I stick to what I said, that
it is better to be raw than rotten. And what is to be
feared on that head, may be known from this: that it is
with the best of hearts as with the best of pears—a dangerous
experiment to linger too long upon the scene.
This did Polonius. Thank fortune, Frank, I am young,
every tooth sound in my head, and if good wine can
keep me where I am, long shall I remain so.”

“True,” with a smile. “But wine, to do good, must
be drunk. You have talked much and well, Charlie;
but drunk little and indifferently—fill up.”

“Presently, presently,” with a hasty and preoccupied
air. “If I remember right, Polonius hints as much as
that one should, under no circumstances, commit the indiscretion
of aiding in a pecuniary way an unfortunate
friend. He drules out some stale stuff about `loan losing
both itself and friend,' don't he? But our bottle; is it
glued fast? Keep it moving, my dear Frank. Good
wine, and upon my soul I begin to feel it, and through
me old Polonius—yes, this wine, I fear, is what excites
me so against that detestable old dog without a tooth.”

Upon this, the cosmopolitan, cigar in mouth, slowly

raised the bottle, and brought it slowly to the light,
looking at it steadfastly, as one might at a thermometer
in August, to see not how low it was, but how high.
Then whiffing out a puff, set it down, and said: “Well,
Charlie, if what wine you have drunk came out of this
bottle, in that case I should say that if—supposing a
case—that if one fellow had an object in getting another
fellow fuddled, and this fellow to be fuddled was of
your capacity, the operation would be comparatively
inexpensive. What do you think, Charlie?”

“Why, I think I don't much admire the supposition,”
said Charlie, with a look of resentment; “it ain't safe,
depend upon it, Frank, to venture upon too jocose suppositions
with one's friends.”

“Why, bless you, Frank, my supposition wasn't personal,
but general. You mustn't be so touchy.”

“If I am touchy it is the wine. Sometimes, when I
freely drink, it it has a touchy effect on me, I have observed.”

“Freely drink? you haven't drunk the perfect measure
of one glass, yet. While for me, this must be my
fourth or fifth, thanks to your importunity; not to speak
of all I drank this morning, for old acquaintance' sake.
Drink, drink; you must drink.”

“Oh, I drink while you are talking,” laughed the
other; “you have not noticed it, but I have drunk my
share. Have a queer way I learned from a sedate old
uncle, who used to tip off his glass unperceived. Do
you fill up, and my glass, too. There! Now away
with that stump, and have a new cigar. Good fellowship

forever!” again in the lyric mood. “Say, Frank,
are we not men? I say are we not human? Tell me,
were they not human who engendered us, as before
heaven I believe they shall be whom we shall engender?
Fill up, up, up, my friend. Let the ruby tide aspire,
and all ruby aspirations with it! Up, fill up! Be we
convivial. And conviviality, what is it? The word, I
mean; what expresses it? A living together. But
bats live together, and did you ever hear of convivial
bats?”

“If I ever did,” observed the cosmopolitan, “it has
quite slipped my recollection.”

“But why did you never hear of convivial bats, nor
anybody else? Because bats, though they live together,
live not together genially. Bats are not genial souls.
But men are; and how delightful to think that the word
which among men signifies the highest pitch of geniality,
implies, as indispensable auxiliary, the cheery
benediction of the bottle. Yes, Frank, to live together
in the finest sense, we must drink together. And so,
what wonder that he who loves not wine, that sober
wretch has a lean heart—a heart like a wrung-out old
bluing-bag, and loves not his kind? Out upon him, to
the rag-house with him, hang him—the ungenial
soul!”

“Oh, now, now, can't you be convivial without being
censorious? I like easy, unexcited conviviality. For
the sober man, really, though for my part I naturally
love a cheerful glass, I will not prescribe my nature as
the law to other natures. So don't abuse the sober

man. Conviviality is one good thing, and sobriety is
another good thing. So don't be one-sided.”

“Well, if I am one-sided, it is the wine. Indeed, indeed,
I have indulged too genially. My excitement
upon slight provocation shows it. But yours is a
stronger head; drink you. By the way, talking of geniality,
it is much on the increase in these days, ain't
it?”

“It is, and I hail the fact. Nothing better attests
the advance of the humanitarian spirit. In former and
less humanitarian ages—the ages of amphitheatres and
gladiators—geniality was mostly confined to the fireside
and table. But in our age—the age of joint-stock companies
and free-and-easies—it is with this precious
quality as with precious gold in old Peru, which Pizarro
found making up the scullion's sauce-pot as the Inca's
crown. Yes, we golden boys, the moderns, have geniality
everwhere—a bounty broadcast like noonlight.”

“True, true; my sentiments again. Geniality has
invaded each department and profession. We have genial
senators, genial authors, genial lecturers, genial
doctors, genial clergymen, genial surgeons, and the next
thing we shall have genial hangmen.”

“As to the last-named sort of person,” said the cosmopolitan,
“I trust that the advancing spirit of geniality
will at last enable us to dispense with him. No murderers—no
hangmen. And surely, when the whole
world shall have been genialized, it will be as out of
place to talk of murderers, as in a Christianized world
to talk of sinners.”

“To pursue the thought,” said the other, “every
blessing is attended with some evil, and—”

“Stay,” said the cosmopolitan, “that may be better
let pass for a loose saying, than for hopeful doctrine.”

“Well, assuming the saying's truth, it would apply
to the future supremacy of the genial spirit, since then
it will fare with the hangman as it did with the weaver
when the spinning-jenny whizzed into the ascendant.
Thrown out of employment, what could Jack Ketch
turn his hand to? Butchering?”

“That he could turn his hand to it seems probable;
but that, under the circumstances, it would be appropriate,
might in some minds admit of a question. For one,
I am inclined to think—and I trust it will not be held
fastidiousness—that it would hardly be suitable to the
dignity of our nature, that an individual, once employed
in attending the last hours of human unfortunates,
should, that office being extinct, transfer himself to the
business of attending the last hours of unfortunate cattle.
I would suggest that the individual turn valet—a
vocation to which he would, perhaps, appear not wholly
inadapted by his familiar dexterity about the person. In
particular, for giving a finishing tie to a gentleman's
cravat, I know few who would, in all likelihood, be,
from previous occupation, better fitted than the professional
person in question.”

“Are you in earnest?” regarding the serene speaker
with unaffected curiosity; “are you really in earnest?”

“I trust I am never otherwise,” was the mildly earnest
reply; “but talking of the advance of geniality, I

am not without hopes that it will eventually exert its
influence even upon so difficult a subject as the misanthrope.”

“A genial misanthrope! I thought I had stretched
the rope pretty hard in talking of genial hangmen. A
genial misanthrope is no more conceivable than a surly
philanthropist.”

“True,” lightly depositing in an unbroken little
cylinder the ashes of his cigar, “true, the two you
name are well opposed.”

“Why, you talk as if there was such a being as a
surly philanthropist.”

“I do. My eccentric friend, whom you call Coonskins,
is an example. Does he not, as I explained to
you, hide under a surly air a philanthropic heart?
Now, the genial misanthrope, when, in the process of
eras, he shall turn up, will be the converse of this; under
an affable air, he will hide a misanthropical heart.
In short, the genial misanthrope will be a new kind of
monster, but still no small improvement upon the original
one, since, instead of making faces and throwing
stones at people, like that poor old crazy man, Timon,
he will take steps, fiddle in hand, and set the tickled
world a' dancing. In a word, as the progress of Christianization
mellows those in manner whom it cannot
mend in mind, much the same will it prove with the
progress of genialization. And so, thanks to geniality,
the misanthrope, reclaimed from his boorish address, will
take on refinement and softness—to so genial a degree,
indeed, that it may possibly fall out that the misanthrope

of the coming century will be almost as popular as, I
am sincerely sorry to say, some philanthropists of the
present time would seem not to be, as witness my eccentric
friend named before.”

“Well,” cried the other, a little weary, perhaps, of a
speculation so abstract, “well, however it may be with
the century to come, certainly in the century which is,
whatever else one may be, he must be genial or he is
nothing. So fill up, fill up, and be genial!”

“I am trying my best,” said the cosmopolitan, still
calmly companionable. “A moment since, we talked
of Pizarro, gold, and Peru; no doubt, now, you remember
that when the Spaniard first entered Atahalpa's treasure-chamber,
and saw such profusion of plate stacked
up, right and left, with the wantonness of old barrels in
a brewer's yard, the needy fellow felt a twinge of misgiving,
of want of confidence, as to the genuineness of
an opulence so profuse. He went about rapping the
shining vases with his knuckles. But it was all gold,
pure gold, good gold, sterling gold, which how cheerfully
would have been stamped such at Goldsmiths'
Hall. And just so those needy minds, which, through
their own insincerity, having no confidence in mankind,
doubt lest the liberal geniality of this age be spurious.
They are small Pizarros in their way—by the
very princeliness of men's geniality stunned into distrust
of it.”

“Far be such distrust from you and me, my genial
friend,” cried the other fervently; “fill up, fill up!”

“Well, this all along seems a division of labor,”

smiled the cosmopolitan. “I do about all the drinking,
and you do about all—the genial. But yours is a nature
competent to do that to a large population. And now,
my friend,” with a peculiarly grave air, evidently foreshadowing
something not unimportant, and very likely
of close personal interest; “wine, you know, opens the
heart, and—”

“Opens it!” with exultation, “it thaws it right out.
Every heart is ice-bound till wine melt it, and reveal the
tender grass and sweet herbage budding below, with
every dear secret, hidden before like a dropped jewel in a
snow-bank, lying there unsuspected through winter till
spring.”

“And just in that way, my dear Charlie, is one of
my little secrets now to be shown forth.”

“Ah!” eagerly moving round his chair, “what is it?”

“Be not so impetuous, my dear Charlie. Let me
explain. You see, naturally, I am a man not overgifted
with assurance; in general, I am, if anything, diffidently
reserved; so, if I shall presently seem otherwise, the reason
is, that you, by the geniality you have evinced in all
your talk, and especially the noble way in which, while
affirming your good opinion of men, you intimated that
you never could prove false to any man, but most by
your indignation at a particularly illiberal passage in
Polonius' advice—in short, in short,” with extreme embarrassment,
“how shall I express what I mean, unless
I add that by your whole character you impel me to
throw myself upon your nobleness; in one word, put
confidence in you, a generous confidence?”

“I see, I see,” with heightened interest, “something
of moment you wish to confide. Now, what is it,
Frank? Love affair?”

“No, not that.”

“What, then, my dear Frank? Speak—depend upon
me to the last. Out with it.”

“Out it shall come, then,” said the cosmopolitan
“I am in want, urgent want, of money.”