s was
true!) It will be hard work, all this; but then I shall be paid for
it. It cannot go on this way; I must and will be paid separately for my
branches."

Just as he came to this resolution, the boy returned with a brown-paper
parcel, addressed to Mr. James Triplet. Triplet weighed it in his hand;
it was heavy. "How is this?" cried he. "Oh, I see," said he, "these
are the tragedies. He sends them to me for some trifling alterations;
managers always do." Triplet then determined to adopt these alterations,
if judicious; for, argued he, sensibly enough: "Managers are practical
men; and we, in the heat of composition, sometimes _(sic?)_ say more
than is necessary, and become tedious."

With that he opened the parcel, and looked for Mr. Rich's communication;
it was not in sight. He had to look between the leaves of the
manuscripts for it; it was not there. He shook them; it did not fall
out. He shook them as a dog shakes a rabbit; nothing!

The tragedies were returned without a word. It took him some time to
realize the full weight of the blow; but at last he saw that the manager
of the Theater Royal, Covent Garden, declined to take a tragedy by
Triplet into consideration or bare examination.

He turned dizzy for a moment. Something between a sigh and a cry escaped
him, and he sank upon a covered bench that ran along the wall. His poor
tragedies fell here and there upon the ground, and his head went down
upon his hands, which rested on Mrs. Woffington's picture. His anguish
was so sharp, it choked his breath; when he recovered it, his eye bent
down upon the picture. "Ah, Jane," he groaned, "you know this villainous
world better than I!" He placed the picture gently on the seat (that
picture must now be turned into bread), and slowly stooped for his
tragedies; they had fallen hither and thither; he had to crawl about for
them; he was an emblem of all the humiliations letters endure.

As he went after them on all-fours, more than one tear pattered on
the dusty floor. Poor fellow! he was Triplet, and could not have died
without tingeing the death-rattle with some absurdity; but, after all,
he was a father driven to despair; a castle-builder, with his work
rudely scattered; an artist, brutally crushed and insulted by a greater
dunce than himself.

Faint, sick, and dark, he sat a moment on the seat before he could find
strength to go home and destroy all the hopes he had raised.

While Triplet sat collapsed on the benc