his assumed character with the skill of a man who, like the illustrious
Charles Fox, has, though in private representations, practised the stage-
play in which Demosthenes said the triple art of oratory consisted; who
has seen a great deal of the world, and has that adaptability of
intellect which knowledge of the world lends to one who is so thoroughly
in earnest as to his end that he agrees to be sportive as to his means.

The kind of language he employs when speaking English to Lebeau is that
suited to the role of a dapper young underling of vulgar mind habituated
to vulgar companionships. I feel it due, if not to Graham himself, at
least to the memory of the dignified orator whose name he inherits, so to
modify and soften the hardy style of that peculiar diction in which he
disguises his birth and disgraces his culture, that it is only here and
there that I can venture to indicate the general tone of it; but in order
to supply my deficiencies therein, the reader has only to call to mind
the forms of phraseology which polite novelists in vogue, especially
young-lady novelists, ascribe to well-born gentlemen, and more
emphatically to those in the higher ranks of the Peerage. No doubt
Graham, in his capacity of critic, had been compelled to read, in order
to review, those contributions to refined literature, and had
familiarized himself to a vein of conversation abounding with "swell" and
"stunner" and "awfully jolly," in its libel on manners and outrage on
taste.

He has attended nightly the cafe Jean Jacques; he has improved
acquaintance with M. Georges and M. Lebeau; he has played at billiards,
he has played at dominos, with the latter. He has been much surprised at
the unimpeachable honesty which M. Lebeau has exhibited in both these
games. In billiards, indeed, a man cannot cheat except by disguising his
strength; it is much the same in dominos,--it is skill combined with