"The Londoner" and no unimportant councillor in the oligarchy of the
clique that went by the name of the "Intellectuals."

"Well," said Mivers, languidly, "I can't even get through the book; it
is as dull as the country in November. But, as you justly say, the
writer is an 'Intellectual,' and a clique would be anything but
intellectual if it did not support its members. Review the book
yourself; mind and make the dulness of it the signal proof of its
merit. Say: 'To the ordinary class of readers this exquisite work may
appear less brilliant than the flippant smartness of'--any other
author you like to name; 'but to the well educated and intelligent
every line is pregnant with,' etc. By the way, when we come by and by
to review the exhibition at Burlington House, there is one painter
whom we must try our best to crush. I have not seen his pictures
myself, but he is a new man; and our friend, who has seen him, is
terribly jealous of him, and says that if the good judges do not put
him down at once, the villanous taste of the public will set him up as
a prodigy. A low-lived fellow too, I hear. There is the name of the
man and the subject of the pictures. See to it when the time comes.
Meanwhile, prepare the way for onslaught on the pictures by occasional
sneers at the painter." Here Mr. Mivers took out of his cylinder a
confidential note from the jealous rival and handed it to his
mild-looking /confrere/; then rising, he said, "I fear we must suspend
our business till to-morrow; I expect two young cousins to breakfast."

As soon as the mild-looking man was gone, Mr. Mivers sauntered to his
drawing-room window, amiably offering a lump of sugar to a canary-bird
sent to him as a present the day before, and who, in the gilded cage
which made part of the present, scanned him suspiciously and refused
the sugar.