that wishes to make its fortune should never waste its columns and
weary its readers by praising anything. Eulogy is invariably dull,--a
fact that Mr Alf had discovered and had utilized.

Mr Alf had, moreover, discovered another fact. Abuse from those who
occasionally praise is considered to be personally offensive, and they
who give personal offence will sometimes make the world too hot to
hold them. But censure from those who are always finding fault is
regarded so much as a matter of course that it ceases to be
objectionable. The caricaturist, who draws only caricatures, is held
to be justifiable, let him take what liberties he may with a man's
face and person. It is his trade, and his business calls upon him to
vilify all that he touches. But were an artist to publish a series of
portraits, in which two out of a dozen were made to be hideous, he
would certainly make two enemies, if not more. Mr Alf never made
enemies, for he praised no one, and, as far as the expression of his
newspaper went, was satisfied with nothing.

Personally, Mr Alf was a remarkable man. No one knew whence he came or
what he had been. He was supposed to have been born a German Jew; and
certain ladies said that they could distinguish in his tongue the
slightest possible foreign accent. Nevertheless it was conceded to him
that he knew England as only an Englishman can know it. During the
last year or two he had 'come up' as the phrase goes, and had come up
very thoroughly. He had been blackballed at three or four clubs, but
had effected an entrance at two or three others, and had learned a
manner of speaking of those which had rejected him calculated to leave
on the minds of hearers a conviction that the societies in question
were antiquated, imbecile, and moribund. He was never weary of
implying that not to know Mr Alf, not to be on good terms with Mr Alf,