Although it had not been phrased as a report, Mr. Fenellan’s answering look and gesture, and a run of indiscriminate words, enrolled it in that form, greatly to the inspiriting of Mr. Radnor.

Old Veuve in one, to the soul of Old Veuve in the other, they recalled a past day or two, touched the skies; and merriment or happiness in the times behind them held a mirror to the present:  or the hour of the reverse of happiness worked the same effect by contrast:  so that notions of the singular election of us by Dame Fortune, sprang like vinous bubbles.  For it is written, that however powerful you be, you shall not take the Winegod on board to entertain him as a simple passenger; and you may captain your vessel, you may pilot it, and keep to your reckonings, and steer for all the ports you have a mind to, even to doing profitable exchange with Armenian and Jew, and still you shall do the something more, which proves that the Winegod is on board:  he is the pilot of your blood if not the captain of your thoughts.

Mr. Fenellan was unused to the copious outpouring of Victor Radnor’s confidences upon his domestic affairs; and the unwonted excitement of Victor’s manner of speech would have perplexed him, had there not been such a fiddling of the waltz inside him.

Payment for the turtle and the bottles of Old Veuve was performed apart with Benjamin, while Simeon Fenellan strolled out of the house, questioning a tumbled mind as to what description of suitable entertainment, which would be dancing and flirting and fal-lallery in the season of youth, London City could provide near meridian hours for a man of middle age carrying his bottle of champagne, like a guest of an old-fashioned wedding-breakfast.  For although he could stand his wine as well as his friend, his friend’s potent capacity martially after the feast to buckle to business at a sign of the clock, was beyond him.  It pointed to one of the embodied elements, hot from Nature’s workshop.  It told of the endurance of powers, that partly explained the successful, astonishing career of his friend among a people making urgent, if unequal, demands perpetually upon stomach and head.

CHAPTER V

THE LONDON WALK WESTWARD

In that nationally interesting Poem, or Dramatic Satire, once famous, the rajah in London (London, Limbo and Sons, 1889), now obliterated under the long wash of Press-matter, the reflection—­not unknown to philosophical observers, and natural perhaps in the mind of an Oriental Prince—­produced by his observation of the march of London citizens Eastward at morn, Westward at eve, attributes their practice to a survival of the Zoroastrian form of worship.  His Minister, favourable to the people or for the sake of fostering an idea in his Master’s head, remarks, that they show more than the fidelity of the sunflower to her God.  The Rajah, it would