The conversation then languished,
and the Shelley-voiced young man turned elsewhere for sympathy, with a
shrug at your country bumpkins who know nothing later than Rossetti.
In the thick of the conversational turmoil, Henry's attention had from
time to time been attracted by the noise proceeding from a blustering,
red-headed man, with a face of fire.
"Who is that?" at last he found opportunity to ask his friend.
"That is our greatest critic," said the publisher.
"Oh!" said Henry, "I must try and hear what he is saying. It seems
important from the way he is listened to."
So Henry listened, and heard how the fire-faced man said the word "damn"
with great volubility and variety of cadence, and other words to the
same effect, and how the little group around him hung upon his words and
said to each other, "How brilliant!" "How absolute!"
Henry turned to his friend. "The only word I can catch is the word
'damn,'" he said.
"That," said the publisher, with a laugh, "is the master-word of
fashionable criticism."
Presently a little talkative man came up, and said that he hoped Mr.
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