Radnor; Miss Radnor too: delicious voices; but what is it about Mr.
Radnor so captivating! He is not quite English, yet he is not at all
foreign. Is he very adventurous in business, as they say?

'Soundest head in the City of London,' Mr. Blathenoy remarked.

Sir Rodwell Blachington gave his nod.

The crowd interjected, half-sighing. We ought to be proud of such a man!
Perhaps we are a trifle exaggerating, says its heart. But that we are
wholly grateful to him, is a distinct conclusion. And he may be one of
the great men of his time: he has a quite individual style of dress.

Lady Rodwell Blachington observed to Colney Durance:

'Mr. Radnor bids fair to become the idol of the English people.'

'If he can prove himself to be sufficiently the dupe of the English
people,' said Colney.

'Idol--dupe?' interjected Sir Rodwell, and his eyebrows fixed at the
perch of Colney's famous 'national interrogation' over vacancy of
understanding, as if from the pull of a string. He had his audience with
him; and the satirist had nothing but his inner gush of acids at sight of
a planted barb.

Colney was asked to explain. He never explained. He performed a series
of astonishing leaps, like the branchy baboon above the traveller's head
in the tropical forest, and led them into the trap they assisted him to
prepare for them. 'No humour, do you say? The English have no humour?'