dazzling you by the array of colours that you never thought to see in
full daylight.... Canary-coloured garments flitted cheerily by
garments of the saddest green. A hat in an agony of pushes and angles
was seen in company with a bonnet that was a gay garland of flowers. A
vast cape that might have enshrouded the form of a Mater Dolorosa hung
by the side of a jauntily-striped Langtry-hood.'

The `Master.' By this title his disciples used to address James
Whistler, the author-artist. Without echoing the obloquy that was
lavished at first nor the praise that was lavished later upon his
pictures, we must admit that he was, as least, a great master of
English prose and a controversialist of no mean power.

`Masher.' One authority derives the title, rather ingeniously, from
`Ma Che`re,' the mode of address used by the gilded youth to the
barmaids of the period--whence the corruption, `Masher.' Another
traces it to the chorus of a song, which, at that time, had a great
vogue in the music-halls: `I'm the slashing, dashing, mashing
Montmorency of the day.' This, in my opinion, is the safer suggestion,
and may be adopted.

London, 1894.


King George The Fourth

They say that when King George was dying, a special form of prayer for
his recovery, composed by one of the Archbishops, was read aloud to
him and that His Majesty, after saying Amen `thrice, with great
fervour,' begged that his thanks might be conveyed to its author. To