truth in what we think than in what we do, I'm sure you might say
that you had been on a wedding-tour with one of the gargoyles."

Mike laughed; and Frank did not suspect that he had annoyed him.
Mike's mother was a Frenchwoman, whom John Fletcher had met in Dublin
and had pressed into a sudden marriage. At the end of three years of
married life she had been forced to leave him, and strange were the
legends of the profanities of that bed. She fled one day, taking her
son with her. Fletcher did not even inquire where she had gone; and
when at her death Mike returned to Ireland, he found his father in a
small lodging-house playing the flute. Scarcely deigning to turn his
head, he said--"Oh! is that you, Mike?--sit down."

At his father's death, Mike had sold the lease of the farm for three
hundred pounds, and with that sum and a volume of verse he went to
London. When he had published his poems he wrote two comedies. His
efforts to get them produced led him into various society. He was
naturally clever at cards, and one night he won three hundred pounds.
Journalism he had of course dabbled in--he was drawn towards it by
his eager impatient nature; he was drawn from it by his gluttonous
and artistic nature. Only ten pounds for an article, whereas a
successful "bridge" brought him ten times that amount, and he
revolted against the column of platitudes that the hours whelmed in
oblivion. There had been times, however, when he had been obliged to
look to journalism for daily bread. The _Spectator_, always open to
young talent, had published many of his poems; the _Saturday_ had
welcomed his paradoxes and strained eloquence; but whether he worked
or whether he idled he never wanted money. He was one of those men
who can always find five pounds in the streets of London.