Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/282

 IV

Past Storisende Fares the Road of Use and Wont

He read The Tinctured Veil in print, with curious wistful wonder. "How did I come to write it?" was his thought.

Thereafter Felix Kennaston, as the world knows, wrote no more books, save to collect his later verses into a volume. "I am afraid to write against the author of The Tinctured Veil," he was wont flippantly to declare. And a few of us suspected even then that he spoke the absolute truth.

Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Kennaston continued their round of decorous social duties: their dinner-parties were chronicled in the Lichfield Courier-Herald; and Kennaston delivered, by request, two scholarly addresses before the Lichfield Woman's Club, was duly brought forward to shake hands with all celebrities who visited the city, and served acceptably in the vestry of his church.