er to
send you my little work on his _Quelle_. BOUNDER, as you are aware"----
Here he pitched his clock into the mirror, and groaned audibly. I tried
another:--

"DEAR MR. ST. BARBE,--I know how busy you are, but you can always spare
an hour or two for the work of a friend. My _Love well Lost_, in three
volumes, is on its way to you. I wish you to review it in all the
periodicals with which you are connected. Last time I wrote a novel, my
nephew reviewed it, very perfunctorily, in the _Pandrosium_; this time I
want only to be reviewed by my _friends_." He was kicking on the sofa,
and apparently trying to commit suicide with the pillows.

"Command yourself, ST. BARBE," I said; "this behaviour is unworthy
either of a Christian or a philosopher. These letters, which irritate
you so much, are conceived in a spirit of respectful admiration. The
books which you have been heaving through the window are, no doubt, of
interest and value."

"Waste paper, every one of them," he moaned. Then he added, as he
rumpled his hair in a frantic manner, "I'd like to see _you_, old cock,
if you had to live this life! It isn't living, it's answering humbugging
letters, and opening brown-paper parcels, all day long, all the weary
day. And my temper, which was angelic, and my manners, which were the
mirror of courtesy, are irretrievably ruined. And my time is wasted, and
my stationer's bill is mere perdition. It begins in the morning; I try
to be calm; I sit down to write replies to all these pestilent idiots."

"Your admirers?" I said.

"They're _not_ admirers; they only cadge for reviews. Time was, they
say, when critics were bribed. Ha! ha! _Now_ they all expect to be
praised for nothing. And the parcels of books they send." Here I noticed
a London Parcels Delivery van, laden with brown-paper packages of books.
Quickly the maid rushed out, and induced the driver to remember that he
was a family man, and he went on his way without calling.

"They come all day long," my poor friend went on, "and all of them are
trash, rubbish that they shoot here; _shoot_, ha! ha'" and he took down
a Winchester rifle, and crept stealthily to the window. Luckily none of
his enemies were in view.

"No waste-paper basket is big enough to hold them all," he said,
ruefully, "and once a week I make a clearance. The neighbours are
beginning to murmur," he added, "There is no sympathy, in England, for a
man of letters. Letters, indeed! I write them all day to