n the thing
described?

_B_. Why then it won't signify whether the description be correct or
not.

_A_. You have taken a load off my mind; but still I am not quite at
ease. I have engaged to furnish C with a fashionable novel.

_B_. What do you mean to imply by a fashionable novel?

_A_. I really can hardly tell. His stipulations were, that it was to
be a "fashionable novel in three volumes, each volume not less than
three hundred pages."

_B_. That is to say, that you are to assist him in imposing on the
public.

_A_. Something very like it, I'm afraid; as it is further agreed that
it is to be puffed as coming from a highly talented nobleman.

_B_. You should not do it, Ansard.

_A_. So conscience tells me, but my tailor's bill says Yes; and that is
a thing out of all conscience. Only look here.

_Displays a long bill_.
_B_. Why, I must acknowledge, Ansard, that there is some excuse. One
needs must, when the devil drives; but you are capable of better things.

_A_. I certainly don't feel great capability in this instance. But
what can I do? The man will have nothing else--he says the public will
read nothing else.

_B_. That is to say, that because one talented author astonished the
public by style and merits peculiarly his own, and established, as it
were, a school for neophites, his popularity is to be injured by
contemptible imitators. It is sufficient to drive a man mad, to find
that the tinsel of others, if to be purchased more cheaply, is to be
pawned upon the public instead of his gold; and more annoying still,
that the majority of the public cannot appreciate the difference between
the metal and the alloy. Do you know, Ansard, that by getting up this
work, you really injure the popularity of a man of great talent?

_A_. Will he pay my tailor's bill!

_B_. No; I dare say he has enough to do to pay his own. What does your
tailor say?

_A_. He is a staunch reformer, and on March the 1st he declares that he
will have the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill--carried to
my credit. Mr C, on the 10th of February, also expects the novel, the
whole novel, and nothing but the novel, and that must be a fashionable
novel. Look here, Barnstaple. (_Shows his tailor's bill_).

_B_. I see how it is. He "pays your poverty, and not your will."

_A_. And, by your leave, I thus must pay my bill (_bowing_).

_B_. Well, wel