and Warrington walked home together in the moonlight. "And now,"
Warrington said, "that you have seen the men of letters, tell me, was I
far wrong in saying that there are thousands of people in this town, who
don't write books, who are, to the full, as clever and intellectual as
people who do?"

Pen was forced to confess that the literary personages with whom he
had become acquainted had not said much, in the course of the night's
conversation, that was worthy to be remembered or quoted. In fact not
one word about literature had been said during the whole course of the
night:--and it may be whispered to those uninitiated people who are
anxious to know the habits and make the acquaintance of men of letters,
that there are no race of people who talk about books, or, perhaps, who
read books, so little as literary men.

CHAPTER XXXVI. The Pall Mall Gazette

Considerable success at first attended the new journal. It was generally
stated, that an influential political party supported the paper; and
great names were cited amongst the contributors to its columns. Was
there any foundation for these rumours? We are not at liberty to say
whether they were ill-founded; but this much we may divulge, that an
article upon foreign policy, which was generally attributed to a noble
Lord, whose connexion with the Foreign Office is very well known, was
in reality composed by Captain Shandon, in the parlour of the Bear and
Staff public-house near Whitehall Stairs, whither the printer's boy
had tracked him, and where a literary ally of his, Mr. Bludyer, had a
temporary residence; and that a series of papers on finance questions,
which were universally supposed to be written by a great Statesman of
the House of Commons, were in reality composed by Mr. George Warrington
of the Upper Temple.

That there may have been some dealings between the Pall Mall Gazette and
this influential party, is very possible, Percy Popjoy (whose father,
Lord Falconet, was a member of the party) might be seen not unfrequently
ascending the stairs to Warrington's chambers; and some information
appeared in the paper which it gave a character, and could only be got
from very peculiar sources. Several poems, feeble in thought, but loud
and vigorous in expression, appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, with the
signature of "P. P."; and it must be owned that his novel was praised in
the new journal in a very outrageous manner.

In the political department of t