more than he had bargained for. With an irony (we trusted) too subtle
to be suspected by the good people of Battle Creek, we would introduce
their illustrious fellow-citizen, casually, between the Pope and the
President of the Republic; we would sketch him as he strolled in the
Boulevard arm-in-arm with Monsieur Meissonier, as he dined with the
Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy, or drank his bock in the
afternoon with the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour; we would
compose solemn descriptive criticisms of his works, which almost made
us die of laughing; we would interview him--at length--about any
subject; we would give elaborate bulletins of his health, and
brilliant pen-pictures of his toilets. Sometimes we would betroth him,
marry him, divorce him; sometimes, when our muse impelled us to a
particularly daring flight, we would insinuate, darkly, sorrowfully,
that perhaps the great man's morals ... but no! We were persuaded that
rumour accused him falsely. The story that he had been seen dancing at
Bullier's with the notorious Duchesse de Z---- was a baseless
fabrication. Unprincipled? Oh, we were nothing if not unprincipled.
And our pleasure was so exquisite, and it worried our victim so. 'I
suppose you think it's funny, don't you?' he used to ask, with a feint
of superior scorn which put its fine flower to our hilarity. 'Look
out, or you'll bust,' he would warn us, the only unconvulsed member
present. 'By gum, you're easily amused.' We always wrote of him
respectfully as Mr. Charles K. Smith; we never faintly hinted at his
sobriquet. We would have rewarded liberally, at that time, any one who
could have told us what the K. stood for. We yearned to unite the
cryptic word to his surname by a hyphen; the mere abstract notion of
doing so filled us with fearful joy. Chalks was right, I dare say; we
were easily amused. And Nina, at these moments of literary frenzy--I
can see her now: her head bent over the manuscript, her hair in some
disarray, a spiral of cigarette-smoke winding ceilingward from between