le, "my heart softens for him.
Why, gossips, we've been in the same straits ourselves. Gadzooks, never
did mother feel more concern for her eldest born than I when Rory Random
went out to make his own way in the world."

"Right, Tobias, right!" cried another man, seated at my very elbow. "By
my troth, I lost more flesh over poor Robin on his island, than had I
the sweating sickness twice told. The tale was well-nigh done when in
swaggers my Lord of Rochester--a merry gallant, and one whose word in
matters literary might make or mar. 'How now, Defoe,' quoth he, 'hast a
tale on hand?' 'Even so, your lordship,' I returned. 'A right merry one,
I trust,' quoth he. 'Discourse unto me concerning thy heroine, a comely
lass, Dan, or I mistake.' 'Nay,' I replied, 'there is no heroine in the
matter.' 'Split not your phrases,' quoth he; 'thou weighest every word
like a scald attorney. Speak to me of thy principal female character, be
she heroine or no.' 'My lord,' I answered, 'there is no female
character.' 'Then out upon thyself and thy book too!' he cried. 'Thou
hadst best burn it!'--and so out in great dudgeon, whilst I fell to
mourning over my poor romance, which was thus, as it were, sentenced to
death before its birth. Yet there are a thousand now who have heard of
Robin and his man Friday, to one who has heard of my Lord of Rochester."

"Very true, Defoe," said a genial-looking man in a red waistcoat, who
was sitting at the modern end of the table. "But all this won't help our
good friend Smith in making a start at his story, which, I believe, was
the reason why we assembled."

"The Dickens it is!" stammered a little man beside him, and everybody
laughed, especially the genial man, who cried out, "Charley Lamb,
Charley Lamb, you'll never alter. You would make a pun if you were
hanged for it."

"That would be a case of haltering," returned the other, on which
everybody laughed again.

By this time I had begun to dimly realise in my confused brain the
enormous honour which had been done me. The greatest masters of fiction
in every age of English letters had apparently made a rendezvous beneath
my roof, in order to assist me in my difficulties. There were many faces
at the table whom I was unable to identify; but when I looked hard at
others I often found them to be very familiar to me, whether from
paintings or from mere description. Thus between the first two speakers,
who had betrayed themselves as Defoe and Smollett, t