long row of potted scarlet geraniums and large white daisies which the
house-porter had ranged by the window; and when he opened the note that
had been forwarded with these he found that the wife of a famous
statesman had observed as she drove along Piccadilly that the flowers in
his balcony wanted renewal and begged his acceptance of this graceful
little tribute. He took up a pair of dumb-bells, and had some exercise
with them, to keep his arms and chest in good condition. He looked at
himself in the mirror: no, he did not seem to have smoked inordinately;
nevertheless, he made sundry solemn vows about those insidious
cigarettes. Then he began to open the envelopes. Here was an imposing
card, "To have the honor of meeting their royal highnesses the king and
queen of ----;" here was a more modest bit of pasteboard with
"_R.S.V.P._ to mess president" at the lower corner; here were
invitations to breakfasts, to luncheons, to afternoon squawks, to
Sunday dinners, to dances and crushes, in short, to every possible kind
of diversion and frivolity that the gay world of London could devise. He
went steadily on with his letters. More photographers wanted him to sit
to them. Would he accept the dedication of "The Squire's Daughter
Fantasia"? The composer of "The Starry Night Valses" would like a
lithographic portrait of Mr. Lionel Moore to appear on the cover. A
humble admirer of Mr. Lionel Moore's great impersonation of Harry
Thornhill begged to forward the enclosed acrostic, and might he be
allowed to print it in the _Mudborough Young Men's Mutual Improvement
Magazine_? Messrs. Smith & Smith would be extremely obliged if Mr.
Lionel Moore would honor them with his opinion of the accompanying pair
of their patent silver-mounted automatic self-adjusting braces.

"If I don't get a secretary," he muttered to himself, "I shall soon be
in a mad-house."