ght, clung with terror to his upper jaw, as tight as do the bellies
of the fresh and slimy soles, paired together by some fisherwoman; but
if his tongue was paralysed, his heart was not--it throbbed against his
ribs with a violence which threatened their dislocation from the
sternum, and with a sound which reverberated through the dark, damp
subterrene--" I think that will do. There's _force_ there.

_Barnstaple_. There is, with a vengeance. Why, what is all this?

_Ansard_. My dear Barnstaple, you here! I'm writing a romance for B--.
It is to be supposed to be a translation.

_Barnstaple_. The Germans will be infinitely obliged to you; but, my
dear fellow, you appear to have fallen into the old school--that's no
longer in vogue.

_Ansard_. My orders are for the old school. B-- was most particular on
that point. He says that there is a re-action--a great re-action.

_Barnstaple_. What, on literature? Well, he knows as well as any man.
I only wish to God there was in everything else, and we could see the
good old times again.

_Ansard_. To confess the truth, I did intend to have finished this
without saying a word to you. I wished to have surprised you.

_Barnstaple_. So you have, my dear fellow, with the few lines I have
heard. How the devil are you to get your fellow out of that state of
asphyxia?

_Ansard_. By degrees--slowly--very slowly--as they pretend that we
lawyers go to heaven. But I'll tell you what I have done, just to give
you an idea of my work. In the first place, I have a castle perched so
high up in the air, that the eagles, even in their highest soar, appear
but as wrens below.

_Barnstaple_. That's all right.

_Ansard_. And then it has subterraneous passages, to which the sewers
of London are a mere song; and they all lead to a small cave at
high-water mark on the sea-beach, covered with brambles and bushes, and
just large enough at its entrance to admit of a man squeezing himself
in:

_Barnstaple_. That's all right. You cannot be too much underground; in
fact, the two first, and the best part of the third volume, should be
wholly in the bowels of the earth, and your hero and heroine should
never _come to light_ until the last chapter.

_Ansard_. Then they would never have been born till then, and how could
I marry them? But still I have adhered pretty much to your idea; and,
Barnstaple, I have such a heroine--such a love--she has never seen her
sweetheart, yet sh