m window, and look
out with her four children at the chaise, as much as to say, "Look
at these four darlings. Flora Bungay! this is why I can't drive in my
carriage; you would give a coach-and-four to have the same reason." And
it was with these arrows out of her quiver that Emma Bacon shot Flora
Bungay as she sate in her chariot envious and childless.

As Pen and Warrington came to Bungay's door, a carriage and a cab drove
up to Bacon's. Old Dr. Slocum descended heavily from the first; the
Doctor's equipage was as ponderous as his style, but both had a fine
sonorous effect upon the publishers in the Row. A couple of dazzling
white waistcoats stepped out of the cab.

Warrington laughed. "You see Bacon has his dinner-party too. That is
Dr. Slocum, author of 'Memoirs of the Poisoners.' You would hardly have
recognised our friend Hoolan in that gallant white waistcoat. Doolan is
one of Bungay's men, and faith, here he comes." Indeed, Messrs. Hoolan
and Doolan had come from the Strand in the same cab, tossing up by the
way which should pay the shilling; and Mr. D. stepped from the other
side of the way, arrayed in black, with a large pair of white gloves
which were spread out on his hands, and which the owner could not help
regarding with pleasure.

The house porter in an evening coat, and gentlemen with gloves as large
as Doolan's, but of the famous Berlin web, were on the passage of Mr.
Bungay's house to receive the guests' hats and coats, and bawl their
names up the stair. Some of the latter had arrived when the three new
visitors made their appearance; but there was only Mrs. Bungay in red
satin and a turban to represent her own charming sex. She made curtsies
to each new-comer as he entered the drawing-room, but her mind was
evidently pre-occupied by extraneous thoughts. The fact is, Mrs. Bacon's
dinner-party was disturbing her, and as soon as she had received each
individual of her own company, Flora Bungay flew back to the embrasure
of the window, whence she could rake the carriages of Emma Bacon's
friends as they came rattling up the Row. The sight of Dr. Slocum's
large carriage, with the gaunt job-horses, crushed Flora: none but hack
cabs had driven up to her own door on that day.

They were all literary gentlemen, though unknown as yet to Pen. There
was Mr. Bole, the real editor of the magazine, of which Mr. Wagg was the
nominal chief; Mr. Trotter, who, from having broken out on the world as
a poet of a tragic