deliberately glum; he recognized that the whole party was flat, and he meant it to remain flat until he exerted his power; he meant to prove his capacity and value later. Mrs. Davidson relapsed into conversation with her dull partner, Lord Graves; she was expert hostess enough to know when her visitors wanted to be let alone.

Then, somewhere about the sixth course, Black exerted himself. In his own dry, excellently restrained way, he began to exercise his wit. He aroused a ripple of laughter; one by one he collected hearers from remote corners of the table; he evoked discussion; and when the dessert was set and the servants had left the room, he began a story to which every one listened except the Duchess and Davidson; and Davidson would have listened if he had been permitted.

But as Black told his story he was giving all his attention to the far end of the table, however much he appeared to be addressing the company at large. He was keeping his story going and awaiting his opportunity. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Valetta deeply pondering some remark to recall the attention of the erring Davidson, who had been unsuccessfully endeavoring to keep up a conversation with his apparently deeply interested partner while he tried to catch the point of the story that was creating so much amuse

ment.

Black was nearing the climax when he suddenly held up his hand and leaned forward. The laughter subsided, an expectant silence fell over the whole table, and precisely at that moment of breathless suspense the voice of Valetta was heard to say very clearly, "Er-ahem! How are the pheasants doing this year?"

Some silly ingénue tittered, and even the most diplomatic were unable to refrain from a glance toward the head of the table.

By all Black's calculation the Duchess should have looked extremely foolish, but Valetta put her head back slightly, looked down the table with a gentle smile of tolerant approval, and turned to receive. her host's answer.

It was certainly not Valetta who was covered with confusion, but many others of the Davidsons' guests had a curious

feeling that they had been betrayed into a breach of good manners, and later they sought opportunities of amusing the Duchess, and it was noticeable that Black was not quite a success. It almost seemed that the avoidance of Black was a recommendation to favor in the eyes of the Duchess. Greening, for instance, was plainly in the ducal good books, although he was most distinctly a bore. Uncharitable people said that Valetta's slight deafness accounted for her favor of Greening-she did not hear half he said.

It was not Black's fault, so much was tacitly agreed. He was not responsible for that contretemps of the dinner-table. He happened to be unlucky, that was all, but unlucky people were not in vogue with those who sought the honor of aristocratic recognition.

Black himself was peculiarly sensitive to atmospheres, and he saw very clearly that he must play his game with great caution. In that house it would be fatal to whisper any insinuation against the Duchess-her slight deafness, her stupidity, her silly little mannerisms were all covered with the glamour that surrounds the ducal coronet. At the back of his mind he was quite conscious that, despite those twenty assiduous years, he had not overcome the reproach of the bookseller's shop. Valetta might be rude, might commit almost any solecism, and at the worst her rudeness might be attributed to eccentricity. Let Cunningham Black make one mistake in breeding, and it would be brought against him as a damning accusation; it would be a faux pas; it would be evidence of his upbringing.

So he walked very warily at the Davidsons', and, afraid to make new opportunity, waited for one to be presented. But when such opportunity came it was too slight to afford him any real satisfaction, and never did Valetta lose for one instant her personal dignity.

Defeated but not disheartened, Black undertook to solve the problem as he had solved so many others. Its very difficulty attracted him. But in this house his handicap was too great. He left the Davidsons' three days earlier than he had originally intended, and returned to London to begin his great campaign.

The opening shot fired three months later was a mere rocket to attract attention. A story of Black's appeared in a well-known magazine, and told as a piece of pure comedy the incident of the railway carriage. He made a good story out of it, distorted the facts, and introduced some kind of a plot. It attracted more attention than short stories generally do, because it was in Black's best manner, and was particularly wellfinished and witty. Its chief charm, however, was the remarkable character sketch of the woman who intruded into the smoking-compartment. She was not a duchess in the story, but the wife of a retired merchant; but everybody who was personally acquainted with the younger dowager Duchess of Tottenham smiled as they read, and said, "How very like Valetta!" and either told their friends to read the story or sent the magazine to them by post. There was, indeed, some quality about that character sketch which impressed itself on the public mind.

The story was followed within a month by the production of Black's comedy, "Madam Dignity."

The play had been written and accepted under another title before Black paid his epoch-making visit to the Davidsons, but when he returned to town he had completely rewritten it, despite the urgent remonstrances of the actor-manager, who had pledged himself to its production in the following spring. Originally there had been a countess in the play, the kind of part of which Miss Compton might have made a success, but this part was now altered and expanded until it was second only to that of the actor-manager's. Black stage-managed the play himself, and in addition to his work at the theater he devoted many patient hours to Miss Moira Greville, who, it will be remembered, made such a sensation in the part of Lady Freake.

"Madam Dignity" was unquestionably a brilliant comedy, but it is doubt ful if it would have run for eighteen months had it not been for the interest which was awakened in this part of Lady Freake. On the first night there were, perhaps, a dozen people in the theater who recognized that this was not a caricature so much as a portrait of one of the three Duchesses of Tottenham.

VOL. CXXVII.-No. 759.-47

Lord Graves grew very warm on the subject. He said that it was scandalous that a playwright should be allowed to draw the character of such a well-known figure, or an actress be permitted to mimic a duchess. He said that Black and Miss Greville and the manager could be had up for libel. He was so disturbed about it all-remembering, perhaps, that he, too, had been one of the Davidsons' house-party, and might also be portrayed on the stage-that he talked about it to every one he knew, and the advance booking broke all records.

Valetta herself went to see the play, and smiled sweetly through the performance. Her only comment on it was that it was "quite amusing."

It may have been due to the actormanager's press-agent, or it may have been an accident, that the secret became known to the general public. If the disclosure was the work of the press-agent, he can hardly be blamed. Pit, gallery, and upper boxes have to be filled, as well as dress-circle and stalls. The agent's knowledge of human nature was profound. Once the secret was known, the cheaper parts of the house were crammed every night and at each of the three matinées which soon became necessary. The woman in the street was no longer to be put off by the imaginary portraits of the aristocracy which had hitherto satisfied her. In "Madam Dignity" she saw, if not an actual duchess, so good a representation of one that she could recognize the original in the Park or at the Palace Gates on the occasion of a drawing-room.

That possibility drew crowds to Hyde Park on Sunday mornings, and when, at the beginning of the season, Valetta drove round in her shabby hired landau, a wave of emotion passed over the ring of sight-seers. Anybody who was anybody could not fail to point an excited finger and whisper: "That's her. That's the Duchess of Tottenham.”

Valetta had to cease driving in the Park.

So far Black had merely drawn a strikingly true portrait of Valetta; he had not laughed at her and pointed the finger of scorn. His plan was deep and far-seeing; he desired the public to become familiar with the person he in

tended to ridicule. When that object had been achieved, he started the Mrs. Scroggins vogue.

Mrs. Scroggins was a charwoman of doubtful antecedents and uncertain honesty, who first appeared as a subsidiary character in Black's novel, Little Frailties. She spoke lodging-house English, she was stupid and a little deaf, but she overcame the doubts and questions of all her employers by her extraordinary dignity. All Black's best work was in the portrait of Mrs. Scroggins, and such was his genius in depicting her that the character carried conviction; the enormous public which read Little Frailties realized for the first time how far personal dignity will cover a multitude of minor defects. And no one who had seen "Madam Dignity" could doubt for a moment that Mrs. Scroggins was, in another sphere of life, none other than Valetta, Duchess of Tottenham. Everybody, of course, had seen Madam Dignity" by that autumn (there were five companies out; the three matinées were still necessary at the West End Theater), and the editors and reviewers, who all gave Black a column on the day of publication, made one or two covert remarks which would have given the show away, even if that portrait had not been obvious.

It was evident that Mrs. Scroggins was too good to wither as a subsidiary character in a novel. Two months after the publication of the novel she appeared as the heroine of a series of short stories (each complete in itself, according to the advertisement) in a new and enterprising magazine. The business manager of that magazine made the most of his opportunity. The hoardings of London and the provinces blared Mrs. Scroggins at every passer-by; she was better known than Sherlock Holmes or Captain Kettle; and the poster artist, either by accident or under Black's tuition, had achieved under the rusty bonnet of Mrs. Scroggins a very passable likeness of Valetta, Duchess of Tottenham.

It is doubtful whether, at this point, an action for libel could have been successful; the connecting-train was too long. Could a jury be asked to cast Black in damages because he had caricatured his own creation of Lady Freake in the per

son of this charwoman? Was it not, on the other hand, too late to bring an ac tion on the grounds of the play which had now been running a year? Even Lord Graves was doubtful. In any case, no action was ever begun.

Black still moved in high society, and when he was questioned he always denied with great warmth and sincerity that he had founded his two celebrated characters on any living personality. When Mrs. Scroggins was published in book form after she had made the fortunes of the magazine, Black wrote to all the papers which made insinuations and asseverated with heat that Mrs. Scroggins was an entirely imaginary person. His attitude in this matter, indeed, appeared so disinterested that that summer-nearly two years after the Davidson affairhe was received into houses which had hitherto appeared almost impregnable. Black was the man of the moment that

summer.

He did not, however, meet Valetta, Duchess of Tottenham. He probably would not have met her in any case, but, as a matter of fact, she had taken herself and her dignity to Bordighera. The Scroggins vogue had been a little too much for her.

Cunningham Black, despite his origin and his cleverness, was not a bad fellow at heart. He had in the first instance attacked a principle, if he had done it through a person. In the railway carriage in which he had first met the Duchess he had wanted to defend himself. He had known in his heart that his feet should have come off the cushion and his cigar gone out of the window with great alacrity. He had known that the bookshop had been betrayed by his resentment against the manner of the Duchess's intrusion. If he had been given opportunity, he might have made the amende honorable, but Valetta was certainly a little deaf, and possibly she had not heard him very well-it is often difficult to hear well in a train. Then when the mischief had been done he had felt that he must vindicate himself at all costs. If he could have broken through Valetta's reserve of dignity so far as to be allowed to explain himself at the Davidsons', the affair would have gone no further. But confronted with that