Ladywell looked as if he sometimes knew secrets, though he did not wish
to boast.

'Written, I presume you mean, in the Anacreontic measure of three feet
and a half--spondees and iambics?' said a gentleman in spectacles,
glancing round, and giving emphasis to his inquiry by causing bland
glares of a circular shape to proceed from his glasses towards the person
interrogated.

The company appeared willing to give consideration to the words of a man
who knew such things as that, and hung forward to listen. But Ladywell
stopped the whole current of affairs in that direction by saying--

'O no; I was speaking rather of the matter and tone. In fact, the Seven
Days' Review said they were Anacreontic, you know; and so they are--any
one may feel they are.'

The general look then implied a false encouragement, and the man in
spectacles looked down again, being a nervous person, who never had time
to show his merits because he was so much occupied in hiding his faults.

'Do you know the authoress, Mr. Neigh?' continued Ladywell.

'Can't say that I do,' he replied.

Neigh was a man who never disturbed the flesh upon his face except when
he was obliged to do so, and paused ten seconds where other people only
paused one; as he moved his chin in speaking, motes of light from under
the candle-shade caught, lost, and caught again the outlying threads of
his burnished beard.