l, I can help you: nothing more difficult than to write a
good novel, and nothing more easy than to write a bad one. If I were
not above the temptation, I could pen you a dozen of the latter every
ordinary year, and thirteen, perhaps, in the bissextile. So banish that
Christmas cloud from your brow; leave off nibbling your pen at the wrong
end, and clap a fresh nib to the right one. I have an hour to spare.

_A_. I thank you: that spare hour of yours may save me many a spare
day. I'm all attention--proceed.

_B_. The first point to be considered is the _tempus_, or time; the
next the _locus_, or place; and lastly the _dramatis personae_ and thus,
chapter upon chapter, will you build a novel.

_A_. Build!

_B_. Yes, build; you have had your dimensions given, the interior is
left to your own decoration. First, as to the opening. Suppose we
introduce the hero in his dressing-room. We have something of the kind
in Pelham; and if we can't copy his merits, we must his peculiarities.
Besides, it always is effective: a dressing-room or boudoir of supposed
great people, is admitting the vulgar into the arcana, which they
delight in.

_A_. Nothing can be better.

_B_. Then, as to time; as the hero is still in bed, suppose we say four
o'clock in the afternoon?

_A_. In the morning, you mean.

_B_. No; the afternoon. I grant you that fashionable young men in real
life get up much about the same time as other people; but in a
fashionable novel your real exclusive never rises early. The very idea
makes the tradesman's wife lift up her eyes. So begin. "It was about
thirty-three minutes after four, _post meridian_--."

_A_. Minute--to a minute!

_B_. "That the Honourable Augustus Bouverie's finely chiselled--"

_A_. Chiselled!

_B_. Yes; great people are always chiselled; common people are only
cast.--"Finely chiselled head was still recumbent upon his silk-encased
pillow. His luxuriant and Antinous-like curls were now confined in
_papillotes_ of the finest satin paper, and the _tout ensemble_ of his
head--"

_A. Tout ensemble_!

_B_. Yes; go on.--"Was gently compressed by a caul of the finest
net-work, composed of the threads spun from the beauteous production of
the Italian worm."

_A_. Ah! now I perceive--a silk nightcap. But why can't I say at once
a silk nightcap?

_B_. Because you are writing a fashionable novel.--"With the forefinger
of his gloved left hand--"

_A_. But he's