Read "The under-Secretary" by William le Queux online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Fashion, as we call it, is in these decadent days at the mercy of any millionaire pork-butcher, or any enterprising adventurer from across the seas. Victorian literature has declined into the "short story" and the "problem play," taking its heroines from among women with a past and its heroes from the slums. In prose, in verse, and in conversation, the favourite style is the Cockney slang of the costermonger, the betting-ring, and the barrack canteen. Is it not appalling that the reek of the pot-house, the music-hall, the turf, the share-market, the thieves' doss-house infects our literature, our manners, our amusements, and our ideals of life? Yet is it not the truth?
Dudley, yielding to Claudia's persuasion, gave a large house-party at Wroxeter during the Christmas recess. As he was too much occupied with his public duties to be able to arrange the affair himself, she returned from Market Harborough and went down to Shropshire to make his arrangements. Truth to tell, he was wearied of the nightly discussions in the House and his daily work at the Foreign Office, and looked forward to a brief period of relaxation and gaiety, when he could entertain his friends. He left everything to her, just as he had done on several previous occasions. Very soon after his decision to ask his friends down to the old feudal castle, Wroxeter was the scene of much cleaning and garnishing.