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So far so good. Here late one evening when the music-halls had just discharged their thousands, and when the Elephants, the Zebras, and the Ponies near by were retiring to rest, sat two men, both authors; the one was an author who had written for now many years upon social subjects, and notably upon the statistics of our industrial conditions. He had come nearer than any other to the determination of the Incidence of Economic Rent upon Retail Exchange and had been the first to show (in an essay, now famous) that the Ricardian Theory of Surplus did not apply in the anarchic competition of Retail Dealing, at least in our main thoroughfares.

His companion wielded the pen in another manner. It was his to analyse into its last threads of substance the human mind. Rare books proceeded from him at irregular and lengthy intervals packed with a close observation of the ultimate motives of men and an exact portrayal of their labyrinth of deed; nor could he achieve his ideal in this province of letters save by the use of words so unusual and, above all, arranged in an order so peculiar to himself, as to bring upon his few readers often perplexity and always awe.