A scandalous rumor of any kind, especially from the region styled "high life," often false, and always incorrect, was the delight both of the paper and of its readers; and the interest it thus awoke, united to the fear it thus caused, was mainly what procured for such as were known to be employed upon it the _entree_ of houses where, if they had had a private existence only, their faces would never have been seen.

But, to do Tom justice, he wrote nothing of this sort: he was neither ill-natured nor experienced enough for that department; what he did write was clever, shallow sketches of that same society into whose charmed precincts he was but so lately a comer that much was to him interesting which had long ceased to be observed by eyes turned horny with the glare of the world's footlights; and, while these sketches pleased the young people especially, even their jaded elders enjoyed the sparkling reflex of what they called life, as seen by an outsider; for they were thereby enabled to feel for a moment a slight interest in themselves objectively, along with a galvanized sense of existence as the producers of history.

These sketches did more for the paper than the editor was willing to know or acknowledge.
But "The Firefly" produced also a little art on its own account--not always very original, but, at least, not a sucking of life from the labor of others, as is most of that parasitic thing miscalled criticism.

In this branch Tom had a share, in the shape of verse.

A ready faculty was his, but one seldom roused by immediate interest, and never by insight.