cript with the tongs from out of the
harmless cinders.

"Oh, Pen, what a humbug you are!" Warrington said; "and what is worst of
all, sir, a clumsy humbug. I saw you look to see that the fire was out
before you sent 'Walter Lorraine' behind the bars. No, we won't burn
him: we will carry him to the Egyptians, and sell him. We will exchange
him away for money, yea, for silver and gold, and for beef and for
liquors, and for tobacco and for raiment. This youth will fetch some
price in the market; for he is a comely lad, though not over strong; but
we will fatten him up and give him the bath, and curl his hair, and we
will sell him for a hundred piasters to Bacon or to Bungay. The rubbish
is saleable enough, sir; and my advice to you is this: the next time you
go home for a holiday, take 'Walter Lorraine' in your carpet-bag--give
him a more modern air, prune away, though sparingly, some of the green
passages, and add a little comedy, and cheerfulness, and satire, and
that sort of thing, and then we'll take him to market, and sell him. The
book is not a wonder of wonders, but it will do very well."

"Do you think so, Warrington?" said Pen, delighted, for this was great
praise from his cynical friend.

"You silly young fool! I think it's uncommonly clever," Warrington said
in a kind voice. "So do you, sir." And with the manuscript which he held
in his hand he playfully struck Pen on the cheek. That part of Pen's
countenance turned as red as it had ever done in the earliest days
of his blushes: he grasped the other's hand and said, "Thank you,
Warrington," with all his might: and then he retired to his own room
with his book, and passed the greater part of the day upon his bed
re-reading it; and he did as Warrington had advised, and altered not a
little, and added a great deal, until at length he had fashioned
'Walter Lorraine' pretty much into the shape in which, as the respected
novel-reader knows, it subsequently appeared.

Whilst he was at work upon this performance, the good-natured Warrington
artfully inspired the two gentlemen who "read" for Messrs. Bacon and
Bungay with the greatest curiosity regarding 'Walter Lorraine,' and
pointed out the peculiar merits of its distinguished author. It was at
the period when the novel, called 'The Fashionable,' was in vogue among
us; and Warrington did not fail to point out, as before, how Pen was
a man of the very first fashion himself, and received at the houses of
some of the g