chiefly as a place to talk in, for which purpose little illumination
was required.

To-night one of the windows in question was occupied by a small group
of talkers isolated from the rest. There was Mackinnon, of _The
Literary Observer_. There were the three wild young spirits of _The
Planet_, Stables, who had launched it with frightful impetus into
space (having borrowed a sum sufficient for the purpose), Maddox, who
controlled its course, and Rankin, whose brilliance made it twinkle so
brightly in the firmament. With them, but emphatically not of them,
was Horace Jewdwine, of Lazarus, who had come up from Oxford to join
the staff of _The Museion_.

Jewdwine and Mackinnon, both secure of a position and a salary, looked
solemn and a little anxious; but the men of _The Planet_, having
formed themselves into a sort of unlimited liability company, and
started a brand new "weekly" of their own (upon no sort of security
beyond their bare brains) were as persons without a single care, worry
or responsibility. They were exchanging ideas in an off-hand and
light-hearted manner, the only stipulation being that the ideas must
be new; for, by some unwritten law of the club, the conversational
currency was liable at any moment to be called in.

This evening, however, they had hit on a topic almost virgin from the
mint.

"S.K.R.? _Who_ is he? _What_ is he?" said Mackinnon.

"I can't tell you what he _is_; but I can pretty soon tell you what
he's not," said Stables. He was a very young man with a white face and