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THE LAST STRAW.
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pursue it. All I mean is, my dear Trent, that there are really remarkable things going on all round us if we will only see them; and we do our perceptions no credit in regarding as remarkable only those affairs which are surrounded with an accumulation of sensational detail.'

Trent applauded heartily with his knife-handle on the table, as Mr. Cupples ceased and refreshed himself with milk and soda water. 'I have not heard you go on like this for years,' he said. 'I believe you must be almost as much above yourself as I am. It is a bad case of the unrest which men miscall delight. But much as I enjoy it, I am not going to sit still and hear the Manderson affair dismissed as commonplace. You may say what you like, but the idea of impersonating Manderson in those circumstances was an extraordinarily ingenious idea.'

'Ingenious–certainly!' replied Mr. Cupples. 'Extraordinarily so–no! In those circumstances (your own words) it was really not strange that it should occur to a clever man. It lay almost on the surface of the situation. Marlowe was famous for his imitation of