and broke out in such a clear, bell-like,
canorous laugh--so contagious in its merriment, that I joined him; and I
fancied I heard Mrs. Muggins beating a hasty retreat down the front stairs.
It seems improbable to me that Mrs. Muggins had been listening at the
key-hole of my door--respectable Mrs. Muggins.

"Then, sir," said Barry, re-assuming his mock-serious air, "there should be
a dreadful duel, in which the hero is shot in his hyacinthine curls, falls
mortally wounded, dripping all over with gory blood, and is borne to his
ladye-love on a shutter! You have none of these fine points. Then the names
of your characters are absurdly commonplace. Mortimer Walters should be
Montaldo St. Clare: Daisy Snarle, (how plebeian!) should be Gertrude
Flemming: John Flint, Clarence Lester, and so on to the end of the text.
How Mrs. Mac Elegant will turn up her celestial nose at a book written all
about common people!"

"Mrs. Mac Elegant be shot!" I exclaimed. I used to be sweet on Mrs. Mac
Elegant, and Barescythe has a disagreeable way of referring to that
delicate fact. "It was not for such as she I wrote. I sought to touch that
finer pulse of humanity which throbs the wide world over. The sequel will
prove whether or not I have failed."

Barry laughed at my ill-concealed chagrin.

"Barry," said I, carelessly, meditating a bit of revenge, and unfolding at
the same time a copy of the 'Morning Glory,' "did you write the book
criticisms in to-day's paper?"

"Yes," returned Barry, coloring slightly.

"They are very fine."

Barry's blood went up to his forehead.

"So consistent," I continued, "with what you have been saying. I have
neither read '_The Scavenger's Daughter_,' nor '_The Life of Obadiah
Zecariah Jinkings_;' but, judging from the opinion here expressed, I take
them to be immortal works. I could never be led to think so by reading the
extracts you have made from the volumes, for the prose is badly
constructed. Indeed, Barry, here's a sentence which lacks a personal
pronoun and a verb."

"I see what you are aiming at," replied Barescythe, sharply. "You twit me
with praising these books so extravagantly. I grant you that worse trash
was never in type, (DAISY is not printed yet, you know,) but will you
allow me to ask you a question?"

"_Si usted gusta_, my dear fellow."

"Do you think that Gabriel Ravel, at Niblo's, turns spasmodic summersets on
a chalked rope for the sake of any peculiar pleasure derived therefr