acquainted with their fellow authors. Nor did he enjoy any familiarity
with Clytie Summers and her sociological studies, while Medora Giles, as
yet, was not even a name.

Mrs. Palmer Pence remained, then, in the seclusion of her "gilded halls,"
as Abner phrased it, save for occasional excursions and alarums that
vivified the columns devoted by the press to the doings of the polite
world; and Adrian Bond kept between the covers of his two or three thin
little books--a confinement richly deserved by a writer so futile,
superficial and insincere; but Leverett Whyland was less easily evaded by
anybody who "banged about town" and who happened to be interested in
public matters. Abner came against him at one of the sessions of the Tax
Commission, a body that was hoping--almost against hope--to introduce
some measure of reason and justice into the collection of the public
funds.

"Huh! I shouldn't expect much from _him_!" commented Abner, as Whyland
began to speak.

Whyland was a genial, gentlemanly fellow of thirty-eight or forty. He was
in the world and of it, but was little the worse, thus far, for that. He
had been singled out for favours, to a very exceptional degree, by that
monster of inconsistency and injustice, the Unearned Increment, but his
intentions toward society were still fairly good. If he may be
capitalized (and surely he was rich enough to be), he might be described
as hesitating whether to be a Plutocrat or a Good Citizen; perhaps he was
hoping to be both.

Abner disliked and doubted him from the start. The fellow was almost
foppish;--could anybody who wore such good clothes have also good motives