knitting his brows forbiddingly.

"Supremely squalid, sinisterly sebaceous, sombrely sociable Smell!" he
pursued violently.

Momentarily his countenance cleared; but his smile was as fugitive as
the favour of princes.

Vindictively champing the end of a cedar penholder, he groped for
expression: "Stygian ... sickening ... surfeiting ... slovenly ...
sour...."

He shook his head impatiently and clawed the impregnated atmosphere
with a tragic hand.

"_Stench!_" he perorated in a voice tremulous with emotion.

Even that comprehensive monosyllable was far from satisfactory.

"Oh, what's the use?" P. Sybarite despaired.

Alliteration could no more; his mother-tongue itself seemed
poverty-stricken, his native wit inadequate. With decent meekness he
owned himself unfit for the task to which he had set himself.

"I'm only a dub," he groaned--"a poor, God-forsaken, prematurely aged
and indigent dub!"

For ten interminable years the aspiration to do justice to the Genius
of the Place had smouldered in his humble bosom; to-day for the first