Page:The principal girl (IA principalgirl00snai).pdf/19

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has the additional advantage that you can't call it Trade.

Our immediate business, however, is with the blameless gentleman who at the age of one-and-thirty was accepted in marriage by a charming representative of the genus, and at the age of nine-and-fifty was made a peer by Mr. Vandeleur's government, immediately antecedent to its total and permanent eclipse.

To return, then, to Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth. For nearly an hour had he occupied the tasteful hearth-*rug provided by Messrs. Maple. A frown chequered his serene front and several times he had recourse to the Leading Morning Journal which lay open on his writing-*table at page four.

At the top of the third column was a communication dated from the Helicon Club, S. W. It was signed by himself and had been crowned with the glory of the largest type you could have without having to pay for it. Immediately below, in type equally glorious, were communications veiled in the discreet anonymity of "A Lover of Animals" and "Verax."

Discreet anonymity is disagreeable as a rule. The fact was the great Proconsul was in the act of rendering a signal service to the Public; and in consequence the Public did not thank him for his interference. To be sure, it was the first time in his life that he had been