ry weaklings, not any one of whom can do
anything worth speaking of; but they try their best to write up one
another; and sometimes they take it into their heads to help an
acquaintance--and then their cry is like that of a pack of beagles? you
would think the press of London, or a considerable section of it,
had but one voice. Why don't you take Lady Arthur's--Lady
Constance's--what's her name?--why don't you take her book to the noble
association of log-rollers? I presume the novel is trash; they'll
welcome it all the more. She is a woman--she is not to be feared; she
hasn't as yet committed the crime of being successful--she isn't to be
envied and anonymously attacked. That's the ticket for you, Linn. They
mayn't convince the public that Lady What's-her-name is a wonderful
person; but they will convince her that she is; and what more does she
want?"

"I don't understand you, Maurice!" the young baritone cried, almost
angrily. "Again and again you've spoken of Octavius Quirk as if he were
beneath contempt."

"What has that to do with it?" the other repeated, placidly. "As an
independent writer, Quirk is quite beneath contempt--quite. There is no
backbone in his writing at all, and he knows his own weakness; and he
thinks he can conceal it by the use of furious adjectives. He is always
in a frantic rush and flurry, that produces no impression on anybody. A
whirlwind of feathers, that's about it. He goes out into the highway
and brandishes a double-handed sword--in order to sweep off the head of
a buttercup. And I suppose he expects the public to believe that his
wild language, all about nothing, means strength; just as he hopes that
they will take his noisy horse-laugh for humor. That's Octavius Quirk as
a writer--a nobody, a nothing, a wisp of straw in convulsions; but as a
puffer--ah, there you have him!--as a puffer, magnificent, glorious, a
Greek hero, invincible, invulnerable. My good man, it's Octavius Quirk
you should go to! Get him to call on his pack of beagles to give tongue;
and then, my goodness, you'll hear a cry--for a while at least. Is there
anything at all in the book?"

"I don't know," said Harry Thornhill, who had changed quickly, and was
now regaling himself with a little of Miss Burgoyne's lemonade, with
which the prima-donna was so kind as to keep him supplied. "Well, now, I
shall be on the stage some time; what do you say to looking over Lady
Adela's novel?"

"All right."

There was a tapp