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Updated: June 27, 2025
"That may be better," Coleyard retorted, in an icy voice, "than sympathy with the worst forms of Stock Exchange speculation." The company smiled uneasily. The railway king wriggled. Wrengold tried to change the subject hastily. But Charles would not be put down. "You must hear the end, though," he said. "That's not quite the worst. The meanest thing about the man is that he's also a hypocrite.
You ought never to have imitated any real person. I happened to glance at the hotel tape just now, to see the quotations for Cloetedorps to-day, and what do you think I read as part of the latest telegram from England? 'Mr. Algernon Coleyard, the famous poet, is lying on his death-bed at his home in Devonshire. By this time all New York knows. Don't stop one minute.
He had evidently put Charles at first to sit next the poet; he varied that arrangement now, setting Algernon Coleyard between a railway king and a magazine editor. I have seldom seen my respected brother-in-law so completely silenced. The poet's conduct during dinner was most peculiar. He kept quoting poetry at inopportune moments. "Roast lamb or boiled turkey, sir?" said the footman.
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. He explained to us a little later, in fact, that he was over in New York to look after his royalties.
Almost as he closed the front door, a new guest entered, just missing him in the vestibule. "Halloa, you men," he said, "we've been taken in, do you know? It's all over the Lotus. The man we made an honorary member of the club to-day is not Algernon Coleyard. He's a blatant impostor.
It's a democratic game; every man decides for himself how high he will play, except the banker; and you needn't take bank unless you want it." "Oh, if you insist upon it," Coleyard drawled out, with languid reluctance, "I'll play, of course. I won't spoil your evening. But remember, I'm a poet; I have strange inspirations."
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