Mr. Brimberly goggled and groped for his whisker.

"I mean," pursued his master, "you have never seen all your secret
weaknesses and petty meannesses stripped stark naked, have you?"

"N-naked, sir!" faltered Mr. Brimberly, "very distressing indeed,
sir--oh, dear me!"

"It's a devilish unpleasant thing," continued Young R., scowling at the
fire again, "yes, it's a devilish unpleasant thing to go serenely on our
flowery way, pitying and condemning the sins and follies of others and
sublimely unconscious of our own until one day--ah, yes--one day we meet
Ourselves face to face and see beneath all our pitiful shams and
hypocrisies and know ourselves at last for what we really are--behold
the decay of faculties, the degeneration of intellect bred of sloth and
inanition and know ourselves at last--for exactly what we are!"

Mr. Brimberly stared at the preoccupation of his master's scowling brow
and grim-set mouth, and, clutching a soft handful of whisker, murmured:
"Certingly, sir!"

"When I was a boy," continued Ravenslee absently, "I used to dream of
the wonderful things I would do when I was a man--by the way, you're
quite sure I'm not boring you--?"

"No, sir--certingly not, sir--indeed, sir!"

"Take another cigar, Brimberly--oh, put it in your pocket, it will do
to--er--to add to your collection! But, as I was saying, as a boy I was
full of a godlike ambition--but, as I grew up, ambition and all the