ce, and with some asperity_)--"What,
sir?"

BARESCYTHE, (_petulantly_)--"Is Ralph in, Sycorax?"

What reply the "relick" of Joshua Muggins might have made to this
interrogation, is only to be imagined; for I immediately "discovered"
myself, to use a theatrical phrase, and led my solemn friend from hostile
ground.

"My dear Barry," said I, after greeting him cordially, "you shouldn't--"

"Shouldn't what?"

"Call Mrs. Muggins names."

"Sycorax? She deserved it. Women are Cleopatras until they are thirty, then
they are old witches with broomstick propensities! Don't interrupt me.
Don't speak to me."

I choked down a panegyric on Woman, for I knew that Barry was thinking of a
cold, heartless piece of femininity that, years and years ago, forgot her
troth to an honest man, and ran away with a moustache and twenty-four gilt
buttons. I could never see why he regretted it, for Mrs. Captain Mary
O'Donehugh never stopped growing till she could turn down a two hundred
weight; and she looks anything but interesting, with her long file of
little O'Donehughs--nascent captains and middies in the bud!

I knew that Barescythe was not in a mood to be critically just, yet, for
the sake of turning his thoughts into different channels, I glanced
significantly at the MS. under his arm.

"My Novel," I ventured.

"Like the man in the play," said Barescythe, "the world should ask somebody
to write it down an ass!"

With which, he threw the manuscript on the table before me.

His remark was uttered with such an air of logic, that I nodded assent, for
I never disagree with logicians.

"The world is wide-mouthed, long-eared, and stupid--it will probably like
that affair of yours, though I doubt if the book sells."

And Barry pointed to the curled up novel on the table.

I bowed with, "I hope it will."

"The world," he continued, "that gave Milton L10 for _Paradise Lost_, ought
surely to be in ecstacies over DAISY'S NECKLACE."

"Barry," said I, somewhat nettled, "is it my good nature, or your lack of
it, that seduces you into saying such disagreeable things?"

"Neither, Ralph, for I no more lack good nature than you possess it. But we
won't quarrel. I am sore because the day of great books has gone by! Once
we could boast of giant minds: we have only pigmies now."

"But let them speak, Barry. There may be some among us that are not for a
day. Who foresaw in the strolling player, in the wild, thoughtless Will
Shakespeare of S