wold,
We found thee missing,--strangled,--drowned i' the mere,
Then should I go distraught and be clean mad!

"O poet, read! read all thy wondrous scrolls.
Yea, read the verse that maketh glad to hear!
Then I began and read two sweet, brief hours,
And she forgot all love save only mine!"

"Is all this from real life?" asked the publisher.

"It--no, sir--not exactly from real life--that is, the leading female
person is not wholly fictitious--and the incident is one which might have
happened. Shall I read you the poems referred to in the one you have
just heard, sir?"

"Allow me, one moment. Two hours' reading, I think, you said. I fear I
shall hardly be able to spare quite time to hear them all. Let me ask
what you intend doing with these productions, Mr.---rr Poplins."

"Hopkins, if you please, sir, not Poplins," said Gifted, plaintively. He
expressed his willingness to dispose of the copyright, to publish on
shares, or perhaps to receive a certain percentage on the profits.

"Suppose we take a glass of wine together, Mr.--Hopkins, before we talk
business," the publisher said, opening a little cupboard and taking
therefrom a decanter and two glasses. He saw the young man was looking
nervous. He waited a few minutes, until the wine had comforted his
epigastrium, and diffused its gentle glow through his unspoiled and
consequently susceptible organisation.

"Come with me," he said.

Gifted followed him into a dingy apartment in the attic, where one sat at
a great table heaped and piled with manuscripts. By him was a huge
basket, ha'f full of manuscripts also. As they entered he dropped
another manuscript into the basket and looked up.

"Tell me," said Gifted, "what are these papers, and who is he that looks
upon them and drops them into the basket?"

"These are the manuscript poems that we receive, and the one sitting at
the table is commonly spoken of among us as 'The Butcher'. The poems he
drops into the basket are those rejected as of no account"

"But does he not read the poems before he rejects them?"

"He tastes them. Do you eat a cheese before you buy it?"

"And what becomes of all those that he drops into the basket?"

"If they are not claimed by their author in proper season, they go to the
devil."

"What!" said Gifted, with his eyes stretched very round.

"To the paper factory, where they have a horrid machine they call the
devil, that tears everything t