who joins the society. No more submission of immortal works
to mercenary calculators, to sordid tastes; no more hard bargains and
broken hearts; no more crumbs of bread choking great tragic poets in the
streets; no more Paradises Lost sold at L10 a-piece! The author brings
his book to a select committee appointed for the purpose,--men of
delicacy, education, and refinement, authors themselves; they read it,
the society publish; and after a modest deduction, which goes towards
the funds of the society, the treasurer hands over the profits to the
author."

"So that, in fact, uncle, every author who can't find a publisher
anywhere else will of course come to the society. The fraternity will be
numerous."

"It will indeed."

"And the speculation--ruinous."

"Ruinous, why?"

"Because in all mercantile negotiations it is ruinous to invest capital
in supplies which fail of demand. You undertake to publish books that
booksellers will not publish: why? Because booksellers can't sell
them. It's just probable that you'll not sell them any better than the
booksellers. Ergo, the more your business, the larger your deficit; and
the more numerous your society, the more disastrous your condition. Q.
E. D."

"Pooh! The select committee will decide what books are to be published."

"Then where the deuce is the advantage to the authors? I would as lief
submit; my work to a publisher as I would to a select committee of
authors. At all events, the publisher is not my rival; and I suspect he
is the best judge, after all, of a book,--as an accoucheur ought to be
of a baby."

"Upon my word, nephew, you pay a bad compliment to your father's Great
Work, which the booksellers will have nothing to do with."

That was artfully said, and I was posed; when Mr. Caxton observed, with
an apologetic smile,--

"The fact is, my dear Pisistratus, that I want my book published without
diminishing the little fortune I keep for you some day. Uncle Jack
starts a society so to publish it. Health and long life to Uncle Jack's
society! One can't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Here my mother entered, rosy from a shopping expedition with Mrs.
Primmins; and in her joy at hearing that I could stay to dinner, all
else was forgotten. By a wonder, which I did not regret, Uncle Jack
really was engaged to dine out. He had other irons in the fire besides
the "Literary Times" and the "Confederate Authors' Society;" he was deep
in a scheme for making house-