Calling at Sutherland’s rooms one morning, Crieff found him surrounded by a number of unwieldy volumes, dirty and dingy enough to have been picked up, as indeed they had been, in the uncleanest shop in Holywell Street. One of these volumes he was examining with considerable impatience when Crieff entered.

‘What have you got there?’ asked the journalist, peeping over his shoulder. ‘As I live, an old volume of the “Satyrnine Review.”’

‘Yes. I saw the rubbish ticketed up very cheap, and bought it. It is not a complete set, but sufficiently so for my purpose.’

And he threw the volume down among its fellows.

‘You’ll find some spicy writing there,’ said Crieff. ‘A little out of date now, of course, for the new society journals have killed the “Satyrnine,” but it used to be deucedly clever.’

‘Clever!’ echoed Sutherland. ‘During the whole of last evening, and for hours this morning, I have been searching these volumes in vain for one spark of insight, for a ray of pure talent. They are simply trash, and spiteful trash, which is the worst of all.’

‘Perhaps you expect too much, old fellow. The “Satyrnine” only professes to be smart.’

‘I hate that word, though it expresses well enough the journalism we speak of—the journalism of the “Satyr,” who now wears fine clothes and calls himself a gentleman, but is at the best a production of literature’s slimy deposits—a Faun, earth-grubbing, ugliness-loving, screeching at the mysteries of artistic sunlight and moonlight. Even your friend Lagardère’s style is better—it makes no hideous pretences.’

‘Come, I’m glad you see some merit in Lagardère, after all!’

‘But this rubbish’—here he touched the volume contemptuously with his foot—‘this rubbish, in its horrible baseness and unintelligence, has not even the redeeming quality of honesty. The writers are ignorant, but they are also vicious; uninstructed, but at the same time pertinacious. Who are these men? Does any one know them? I should be curious, for example, to see the goatfooted animal who wrote this article on Thackeray.’

‘Well, you see,’ answered Crieff, reflectively, ‘they rather make a point of working in the dark, keeping up a mystery, so to speak; but nowadays, when the journal has gone downhill, and spicier papers like the “Plain Speaker” have practically killed it, the “Satyrnines” are better known than they used to be.’

‘Are they persons of reputation?’

‘Well, no; of course not.’

‘Gentlemen?’

‘Some of them, perhaps,’ said Crieff, with a smile; ‘but for the most part just like the rest of us—a mixed breed. There’s our friend Gass, whom you met at Gavrolles’; he’s one. He has his finger in most journalistic pies, and writes on all sides to turn an honest penny.’

‘Humph!’ muttered Sutherland. ‘I once had a “Satyrnine Reviewer” pointed out to me at a party. He looked like a creature fresh from some large drapery establishment; dressed within an inch of his life, with pince-nez on nose, but goat-eared and goat-footed for all that—I am sure the animal couldn’t even spell. But turning from the men to the matter, what I have been most struck by in reading these wretched volumes is their utter want of the positively human qualities—veracity, reverence, generous aspiration. There is not a single public man of any nobility, either in politics or literature, who is not persistently gibbered at and reviled. Our present Liberal statesmen are insulted by the grossest personalities. Our great literary men are for the most part decried—when they are praised the reason is not far to seek. Thackeray, inspected by the Satyr, is “no gentleman.” * Dickens is an ignoramus. Browning is a dunce, ignorant even of grammar. Worse than this is the vicious determination to ignore any kind of modest merit. In the course of the long years over which these files extend, many men, now distinguished, have arisen. In no single instance has this representative journal been able to recognise the coming genius, or willing to help the struggling aspirant. The method has been to ignore new men as long as possible; then when ignorance could not be pleaded, to interpose every possible impertinence of interpretation between the men and the public; and finally, when they have been crowned, to insult them with a monkey’s gibbering interposition. For fatuousness, ignorance, ami dwarfish spitefulness—in a word, for all the old ear tidiness of the cloven foot—commend me to this “Satyrnine Review.”’

* See the ‘Roundabout Papers,’ passim

‘Never mind,’ says the practised Crieff, cheerily. ‘Nemesis has come—the “Satyrnine” is done for. The curse of dulness is upon it. It once sold 20,000. The other day, when it was in the market, it could hardly find a purchaser. It lingers on with a country subscription among retrograde old rectors and blue-buskin’d village spinsters, but by-and-by the acidulous short paragraph system will conquer even them.’

Thereupon Crieff, whose life was one of hard work and bustling visits, was about to take his departure, when at Sutherland’s entreaty he promised to return for lunch; for Sutherland liked the little man, and found a curious fascination in his tittle-tattle concerning the world of art and letters.

Later in the day the two lunched together. For a wonder, it was an idle day with Crieff, and, once comfortably seated in an arm-chair, with a good cigar in his mouth, he seemed determined to enjoy himself. The two chatted pleasantly for some time; that is to say, the journalist, who was garrulous by nature and habit, chatted, and the other smoked, listened, and occasionally interpolated a remark.

Presently Crieff’s face darkened, and, after looking keenly at his companion for a minute, he said, with a certain indignation—

‘I’m afraid I shall have to give up Lagardère, after all. He’s been at it again.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m almost afraid to tell you, old fellow, for fear of arousing the slumbering lion. Yet I think it’s only fair, as I fancy you take an interest in the lady.’

‘The lady?’

‘Yes. You remember the young actress who appeared at the Parthenon this summer? Ah, I see you do. Well, of course you know that she retired into private life—married Forster, the merchant, a rich man and a thoroughly good fellow.’

‘Yes, I heard of it, and—I was glad.’

‘And so was I. She was too good for the stage. Well, now, I’m afraid there’s something unpleasant brewing. Just read this!’

As he spoke Crieff drew from his pocket several newspapers, and handed one, with a certain page turned down to indicate a paragraph, to Sutherland.

The paper was the ‘Plain Speaker,’ edited by Lagardère. The paragraph was as follows:—

‘Does a talented young actress, who recently left the stage, and, in the words of the immortal “Vilikens and his Dinah” (why not, on this occasion, read “Diana”?), married a rich merchant who in London did dwell, recollect a certain boarding school somewhere in France, an infatuated male teacher, and an elopement? It is said that Luna was once caught tripping, to the great amusement of Pan and the Satyrs. Luna was another name for Diana. Verb. sap.’

As he read, the lace of Sutherland grew black as night, his fist clenched, and he uttered an angry exclamation.

‘Do you understand the reference?’ asked Crieff. ‘I don’t, but I think there is no doubt as to whom it points. But Lagardère is fond of reiteration. Read a little lower down.’

Further down, after a number of jaunty and not too grammatical paragraphs on various topics of the day, came the following—

‘When I was last in Paris, and the guest of Gambetta (it is a curious fact, by the way, that Gambetta has an exceedingly foul breath, and seldom or never changes his woollen shirt or washes his large feet), our talk turned on a volume which had just appeared, “Parfums de la Chair.” The title having a strong attraction for the not too clean Republican, he had bought the book. He admire............