had no idea that the slim grey-haired
gentleman whom they saw pottering about
in his garden on summer afternoons, or
lying on the grass under the shade of a
big tree playing with his children, was
the lightning-compeller and the thunder-
creator of the Comet. Though most earnest
while engaged in his work, it was his
greatest delight to leave every trace of it
behind him at his office, and to be entirely
free from its influence when at home with
his wife and children. Occasionally, of
course, the few old friends who dined with
him would start a political or literary
discussion, in which he would bear his part,
but he was never happy until the conversation
found its way back into the ordinary
social channels, or until a demand
was made for music, of which he was
passionately fond. It was a lucky thing for
Walter Joyce to make the acquaintance
and to win the regard of such a man as
Terence O'Connor, who had a wonderfully
quick eye for character, and who, having
noticed Walter's readiness of appreciation
and bright incisive style in the few articles
which he wrote on the occasion of his first
introduction by Mr. Byrne, suggested that
the post at Berlin should be offered to him.
The more they were thrown together the
better they liked each other. Walter had
the greatest admiration for O'Connor's
talent and power of work, while the elder
man looked kindly on his young friend's
eagerness and enthusiasm, his desire for
distinction, and his delight at laudation,
perhaps as somewhat reflecting his own
feelings before he had become settled down
to the mill-horse grind—ah, how many
years ago!

After the conference had broken up,
Joyce, to whom, perhaps, a subject had
been given to treat, would go back to his
chambers and work at it for two or three
hours, or he would remain at the office
discussing the matter in detail with Terence
O'Connor, and taking his friend's advice
as to the manner of treatment. Or, if he
were free, he would lounge in the Park,
and stare at the equipages, and the
toilettes, and the London panorama of luxury
there constantly going by, all new to the
country-bred young man, to whom, until
he went to Lord Hetherington's, the old
rumbling chariot of Sir Thomas Churchill,
with its worsted-epauletted coachman and
footmen, was a miracle of comfort and a
triumph of taste. Or he would ramble out
with Shimmer, or Forrest, or some other of
his colleagues, to the suburbs, over the breezy
heights of Hampstead, or through the green
Willesden lanes, and get the city dust and
smoke blown out of them. When he was not
on duty at the office at night, Walter would
sometimes take the newspaper admission
and visit the theatre, but he had little taste
for the drama, or rather, perhaps, for such
dramatic representations as were then in
vogue, and it pleased him much more to
attend the meetings of the Forum, a club
constituted for the purpose of discussing
the principal political and social questions of
the day, and composed of young barristers,
and newspaper writers, with a sprinkling of
public-office men, who met in the large
room of a tavern situated in one of the
quiet streets leading from Fleet-street to
the river. The leaders of the different
political parties, and others whose deeds or
works had given them celebrity or
notoriety, were happy in their ignorance of the
existence of the Forum, or they must have
been rendered uncomfortable by finding
themselves the objects of so much wild
denunciation. The members of the Forum
were not in the habit of concealing their
opinions, or of moderating the language in
which those opinions were expressed, and
the debate in which the then holders of
office were not denounced as effete and
useless nincompoops, bound by degrading
ties of subserviency to a policy which,
while originally dangerous, was now
degrading, or in which the leaders of
the Opposition were not stigmatised as
base-bred ruffians, linked together by
the common bond of ignorance with
the common hope of rapine—was
considered dull and spiritless indeed. As
Mr. Byrne had intimated, Walter Joyce
was one of the most prominent members of
this debating club; he had a clear resonant
voice, capable of excellent modulation, and
spoke with fluency. His speeches, which
were tinged with a far more pronounced
radicalism—the effect of the teaching of
Jack Byrne—than had previously been
promulgated at the meetings of the Forum,
soon became widely talked of among the
members and their friends, and Walter's
rising was eagerly looked forward to, and
warmly hailed, not merely for the novelty
of his doctrine, but for the boldness and
the humour with which he sought to
inculcate it. His success was so great that
the heads of the Tory party in the club
became alarmed, and thought it necessary to
send off for Alister Portcullis, who was
formerly the great speaker on their side,
but who had recently become editor of a