wly trickled down each side of his
bristly chin--while each tooth loosened from its socket with individual
fear.--Not a word could he utter, for his tongue, in its fright, clung
with terror to his upper jaw, as tight as do the bellies of the fresh
and slimy soles, paired together by some fishwoman; but if his tongue
was paralysed, his heart was not--it throbbed against his ribs with a
violence which threatened their dislocation from the sternum, and with a
sound which reverberated through the dark, damp subterrene----." I think
that will do. There's _force_ there.

_B._ There is, with a vengeance. Why, what is all this?

_A._ My dear Barnstaple, you here? I'm writing a romance for B----. It
is to be supposed to be a translation.

_B._ The Germans will be infinitely obliged to you; but, my dear fellow,
you appear to have fallen into the old school--that's no longer in
vogue.

_A._ My orders are for the old school. B---- was most particular on that
point. He says that there is a re-action--a great re-action.

_B._ What, on literature? Well, he knows as well as any man. I only wish
to God there was in everything else, and we could see the good old times
again.

_A._ To confess the truth, I did intend to have finished this without
saying a word to you. I wished to have surprised you.

_B._ So you have, my dear fellow, with the few lines I have heard. How
the devil are you to get your fellow out of that state of asphyxia?

_A._ By degrees--slowly--very slowly--as they pretend that we lawyers go
to heaven. But I'll tell you what I have done, just to give you an idea
of my work. In the first place, I have a castle perched so high up in
the air, that the eagles, even in their highest soar, appear but as
wrens below.

_B._ That's all right.

_A._ And then it has subterraneous passages, to which the sewers of
London are a mere song, and they all lead to a small cave at high water
mark on the sea-beach, covered with brambles and bushes, and just large
enough at its entrance to admit of a man squeezing himself in.

_B._ That's all right. You cannot be too much underground; in fact, the
two first, and the best part of the third volume, should be wholly in
the bowels of the earth, and your hero and heroine should never _come to
light_ until the last chapter.

_A._ Then they would never have been born till then, and how could I
marry them? But still I have adhered pretty much to your idea; and,
Barnstaple, I have such a