"Yes, Asher, yes; but would you mind coming this way, for I see
Ringwood. He goes by in his drooping mantle, looking more like an
umbrella than usual. Lady Ascott has engaged him for the season, and
he goes out with her to talk literature--plush stockings, cockade.
Literature in livery! Ringwood introducing Art!"

Owen laughed, and begged Harding to send his joke to the comic
papers.

"An excellent subject for a cartoon."

"He has stopped again. Now I'm sure he's talking of Sophocles. He
walks on.... I'm mistaken; he is talking about Molière."

"An excellent idea of yours--'Literature in livery!'"

"His prose is always so finely spoken, so pompous, that I cannot help
smiling. You know what I mean."

"I've told you it ought to be sent to the papers. I wish he would
leave that writing-table; and Lady Ascott might at least ask him to
brush his coat."

"It seems to me so strange that she should find pleasure in such
company."

"Men who will not cut their hair. How is it?"

"I suppose attention to externals checks or limits the current of