Jack Dunquerque repaired to the Langham, the day after the call on the Twins, with a face in which cheerful anticipation and anxiety were curiously blended. He was serious with his lips, but he laughed with his eyes. And he spoke with a little hesitation not often observed in him.

"I think your dinner will come off next Wednesday," he said. "And I have been getting together your party for you."

"That is so, Mr. Dunquerque?" asked Gilead Beck, with a solemnity which hardly disguised his pride and joy. "That is so? And those great men, your friends, are actually coming?"

"I have seen them all, personally. And I put the case before each of them. I said, 'Here is an American gentleman most anxious to make your acquaintance; he has no letters of introduction to you, but he is a sincere admirer of your genius; he appreciates you better than any other living man.'"

"Heap it up, Mr. Dunquerque," said the Man of Oil. "Heap it up. Tell them I am Death on appreciation."

"That is in substance what I did tell them. Then I explained that you deputed me, or gave me permission to ask them to dinner. 'The honour,' I said, 'is mutual. On the one hand, my friend, Mr. Gilead P. Beck'—I ventured to say, 'my friend, Mr. Gilead P. Beck'——"

"If you hadn't said that you should have been scalped and gouged. Go on, Mr. Dunquerque; go on, sir."

"'On the one hand, my friend, Mr. Gilead P. Beck'——"

"That is so—that is so."

"'Will feel himself honoured by your company; on the other hand, it will be a genuine source of pleasure for you to know that you are as well known and as thoroughly appreciated on the other side of the water as you are here.' I am not much of a speechmaker, and I assure you that little effort cost me a good deal of thought. However, the end of it is all you care about. Most of the writing swells will come, either on Wednesday next or on any other day you please."

"Mr. Dunquerque, not a day passes but you load me with obligations. Tell me, if you please, who they are."

"Well, you will say I have done pretty well, I think." Jack pulled out a paper. "And you will know most of the names. First of all, you would like to see the old Philosopher of Cheyne Walk, Thomas Carlyle, as your guest?"

"Carlyle, sir, is a name to conjure with in the States. When I was Editor of the Clearville Roarer I had an odd volume of Carlyle, and I used to quote him as long as the book lasted. It perished in a fight. And to think that I shall meet the man who wrote that work! An account of the dinner must be written for the Rockoleaville Gazette. We'll have a special reporter, Mr. Dunquerque. We'll get a man who'll do it up to the handle."

Jack looked at his list again.

"What do you say of Professor Huxley and Mr. Darwin?"

Mr. Beck shook his head. These two writers began to flourish—that is, to be read—in the States after his editorial days, and he knew them not.

"I should say they were prominent citizens, likely, if I knew what they'd written. Is Professor Huxley a professing Christian? There was a Professor Habukkuk Huckster once down Empire City way in the Moody and Sankey business, with an interest in the organs and a percentage on the hymn-books; but they're not relations, I suppose? Not probable. And the other genius—what is his name—Darwin? Grinds novels perhaps?"

"Historical works of fiction. Great in genealogy is Darwin."

"Never mind my ignorance, Mr. Dunquerque. And go on, sir. I'm powerful interested."

"Ruskin is coming; and I had thought of Robert Browning, the poet, but I am afraid he may not be able to be present. You see, Browning is so much sought after by the younger men of the day. They used to play polo and billiards and other frivolous things till he came into fashion with his light and graceful verse, so simple that all may understand it. His last poem, I believe, is now sung about the streets. However, there are Tennyson and Swinburne—they are both coming. Buchanan I would ask, if I knew him, but I don't. George Eliot, of course, I could not invite to a stag party. Trollope we might get, perhaps——"

"Give me Charles Reade, sir," said Gilead Beck. "He is the novelist they like on our side."

"I am afraid I could not persuade him to come; though he might be pleased to see you if you would call at his house, perhaps. However, Beck, the great thing is"—he folded up his list and placed it in his pocket-book—"that you shall have a dinner of authors as good as any that sat down to the Lord Mayor's spread last year. Authors of all sorts, and the very best. None of your unknown little hungry anonymous beggars who write novels in instalments for weekly papers. Big men, sir, with big names. Men you'll be proud to know. And they shall be asked for next Wednesday."

"That gives only four days. It's terrible sudden," said Gilead Beck. He shook his head with as much gravity as if he was going to be hanged in four days. Then he sat down and began to write the names of his guests.

"Professor Huxley," he said, looking up. "I suppose I can buy that clergyman's sermons? And the Universal Genius who reels out the historical romances, Mr. Darwin? I shall get his works, too. And there's Mr. Ruskin, Mr. Robert Browning——"

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, Mr. Dunquerque, I am going to devote the next four days, from morning till night, to solid preparation for that evening. I shall go out right away, and I shall buy every darned book those great men have written; and if I sit up every night over the job, I'm bound to read every word."

"Oh!" said Jack. "Then I advise you to begin with Robert Browning."

"The light and graceful verse that everybody can understand? I will," said Gilead Beck. "They shall not find me unacquainted with their poems. Mr. Dunquerque, for the Lord's sake don't tell them it was all crammed up in four days."

"Not I. But—I say—you know, authors don't like to talk about their own books."

"That's the modesty of real genius," said the American, with admiration.

It will be perceived that Jack spoke with a certain rashness. Most authors I have myself known do love very much to talk about their own books.

"That is their modesty. But they will talk about each other's books. And it is as well to be prepared. What I'm bound to make them feel, somehow, is that they have a man before them who has gone in for the hull lot and survived. A tough contract, Mr. Dunquerque, but you trust me."

"Very well," said Jack, putting on his hat, "only don't ask them questions. Authors don't like being questioned. Why, I shouldn't wonder if next Wednesday some of them pretended not to know the names of their own books. Don't you know that Shakespeare, when he went down to Stratford, to live like a retired grocer at Leytonstone, used to pretend not to know what a play meant? And when a strolling company came round, and the manager asked permission to play Hamlet, he was the first to sign a petition to the mayor not to allow immoral exhibitions in the borough."

"Is that so, sir?"

"It may be so," said Jack, "because I never heard it contradicted."

As soon he was gone, Gilead Beck sought the nearest bookseller's shop and gave an extensive order. He requested to be furnished with all the works of Carlyle, Ruskin, Tennyson, Swinburne, Browning, Buchanan, Huxley, Darwin, and a few more. Then he returned to the Langham, gave orders that he was at home to no one except Mr. Dunquerque, took off his coat, lit a cigar, ordered more champagne, and began the first of the three most awful days he ever spent in all his life.

The books presently came in a great box, and he spread them on the table with a heart that sank at the mere contemplation of their numbers. About three hundred volumes in all. And only four days to get through them. Seventy-five volumes a day, say, at the rate of fifteen hours' daily work; five an hour, one every twelve minutes. He laid his watch upon the table, took the first volume of Robert Browning that was uppermost, sat down in his long chair with his feet up, and began.

The book was Fifine at the Fair. Gilead Beck read cheerfully and with great ease the first eight or ten pages. Then he discovered with a little annoyance that he understood nothing whatever of the author's meaning. "That comes of too rapid reading," he said. So he turned back to the beginning and began with more deliberation. Ten minutes clean wasted, and not even half a volume got through. When he had got to tenth page for the second time, he questioned himself once more, and found that he understood less than ever. Were things right? Could it be Browning, or some impostor? Yes, the name of Robert Browning was on the title-page; also, it was English. And the words held together, and were not sprinkled out of a pepper-pot. He began a third time. Same result. He threw away his cigar and wiped his brow, on which the cold dews of trouble were gathering thickly.

"This is the beginning of the end, Gilead P. Beck," he murmured. "The Lord, to try you, sent His blessed Ile, and you've received it with a proud stomach. Now you air going off your head. Plain English, and you can't take in a single sentence."

It was in grievous distress of mind that he sprang to his feet and began to walk about the room.

"There was no softenin' yesterday," he murmured, trying to reassure himself. "Why should there be to-day? Softenin' comes by degrees. Let us try again. Great Jehoshaphat!"

He stood up to his work, leaning against a window-post, and took two pages first, which he read very slowly. And then he dropped the volume in dismay, because he understood less than nothing.

It was the most disheartening thing he had ever attempted.

"I'd rather fight John Halkett over again," he said. "I'd rather sit with my finger on a trigger for a week, expecting Mr. Huggins to call upon me."

Then he began to construe it line by line, thinking every now and then that he saw daylight.

It is considered rather a mark of distinction, a separating seal upon the brow, by that poet's admirers, to reverence his later works. Their creed is that because a poem is rough, harsh, ungrammatical, and dark, it must have a meaning as deep as its black obscurity.

"It's like the texts of a copybook," said Gilead. "Pretty things, all of them, separate. Put them together and where are they? I guess this book would read better upsy down."

He poured cold water on his head for a quarter of an hour or so, and then tried reading it aloud.

This was worse than any previous method, because he comprehended no more of the poet's meaning, and the rough hard words made his front teeth crack and fly about the room in splinters.

"CÆsar's ghost!" he exclaimed, thinking what he should do if Robert Browning talked as he wrote. "The human jaw isn't built that could stand it."

Two hours were gone. There ought to have been ten volumes got through, and not ten pages finished of a single one.

He hurled Fifine to the other end of the room, and took another work by the same poet. It was Red Cotton Nightcap Country, and the title looked promising. No doubt a light and pretty fairy story. Also the beginning reeled itself off with a fatal facility which allured the reader onwards.

When the clock struck six he was sitting among the volumes on the table, with Red Cotton Nightcap Country still in his hand. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was pushed in disorder about his head, his cheeks were flushed, his hands were trembling, the nerves in his face were twitching.

He looked about him wildly, and tried to collect his faculties. Then he arose and cursed Robert Browning. He cursed him eating, drinking, and sleeping. And then he took all his volumes, and disposing them carefully in the fire-place, he set light to them.

"I wish," he said, "that I could put the Poet there, too." I think he would have done it, this mild and gentle-hearted stranger, so strongly was his spirit moved to wrath.

He could not stay any longer in the room. It seemed to be haunted with ghosts of unintelligible sentences; things in familiar garb, which floated before his eyes and presented faces of inscrutable mystery. He seized his hat and fled.

He went straight to Jack Dunquerque's club, and found that hero in the reading-room.

"I have a favour to ask you," he began in a hurried and nervous manner. "If you have not yet asked Mr. Robert Browning to the little spread next week, don't."

"Certainly not, if you wish it. Why?"

"Because, sir, I have spent eight hours over his works."

Jack laughed.

"And you think you have gone off your head? I'll tell you a secret. Everybody does at first; and then we all fall into the dodge, and go about pretending to understand him."

"But the meaning, Mr. Dunquerque, the meaning?"

"Hush! he hasn't got any. Only no one dares to say so, and it's intellectual to admire him."

"Well, Mr. Dunquerque, I guess I don't want to see that writer at my dinner, anyhow."

"Very well, then. He shall not be asked."

"Another day like this, and you may bury me with my boots on. Come with me somewhere, and have dinner as far away from those volumes of Mr. Browning as we can get in the time."

They dined at Greenwich. In the course of the next three days Gilead Beck read diligently. He did not master the three hundred volumes, but he got through some of the works of every writer, taking them in turn.

The result was a glorious and inextricable mess. Carlyle, Swinburne, Huxley, Darwin, Tennyson, and all of them, were hopelessly jumbled in his brains. He mixed up the Sartor Resartus with the Missing Link, confounded the history of Frederick the Great with that of Queen Elizabeth, and thought that Maud and Atalanta in Calydon were written by the same poet. But time went on, and the Wednesday evening, to which he looked forward with so much anxiety and pride, rapidly drew near.