Most of our fellow-guests had met Coleyard
before at a reception given by the Lotus Club that afternoon, for
the bard had reached New York but the previous evening; so Charles
and I were the only visitors who remained to be introduced to him.
The lion of the hour was attired in ordinary evening dress, with
no foppery of any kind, but he wore in his buttonhole a dainty
blue flower whose name I do not know; and as he bowed distantly to
Charles, whom he surveyed through his eyeglass, the gleam of a big
diamond in the middle of his shirt-front betrayed the fact that the
Briar-rose school, as it was called (from his famous epic), had at
least succeeded in making money out of poetry. He explained to us a
little later, in fact, that he was over in New York to look after
his royalties. "The beggars," he said, "only gave me eight hundred
pounds on my last volume. I couldn't stand _that_, you know; for a
modern bard, moving with the age, can only sing when duly wound up;
so I've run across to investigate. Put a penny in the slot, don't
you see, and the poet will pipe for you."
"Exactly like myself," Charles said, finding a point in common.
"_I'm_ interested in mines; and I, too, have come over to look
after my royalties."
The poet placed his eyeglass in his eye once more, and surveyed
Charles deliberately from head to foot.
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