getting better and better) that he graciously permitted his initials
to appear. S.K.R.--Savage Keith Rickman."

"Good Lord!" said Rankin; "what must he be like?"

"Ask Jewdwine," said Stables; "he's Jewdwine's man."

"Excuse _me_," said Maddox, "he is _mine_. I say, Jewdwine, what _is_
he like?"

Jewdwine did not respond very eagerly; he wanted to get on with his
letter. But the club had another unwritten law as to writing. If a
majority of members desired to write, silence was vigorously insisted
on. Any number short of a majority wrote as best they could. For this
unfortunate scribe there could be no concession; he was in a minority
of one.

"If"--said he, "you can imagine the soul of a young Sophocles,
battling with that of a--of a junior journalist in the body of a
dissipated little Cockney--"

"Can't," said Stables. "Haven't got enough imagination."

"The child of 'Ellas and of Ollywell Street'--innocent of--er--the
rough breathing," suggested Maddox.

As it was now seven o'clock, and the Junior Journalists were dropping
off one by one to the dining-room below, the young men of _The Planet_
began to stretch their legs, and raise their voices, and behave like
young men who believe their privacy to be inviolable and complete.