'

'Very little.'

'I am sorry for that,' said the publisher seriously, 'for he who sets up
for an author ought to be acquainted not only with religion, but
religions, and indeed with all subjects, like my good friend in the
country. It is well that I have changed my mind about the _Dairyman's
Daughter_, or I really don't know whom I could apply to on the subject at
the present moment, unless to himself; and after all I question whether
his style is exactly suited for an evangelical novel.'

'Then you do not wish for an imitation of the _Dairyman's Daughter_?'

'I do not, sir; I have changed my mind, as I told you before; I wish to
employ you in another line, but will communicate to you my intentions
after dinner.'

At dinner, beside the publisher and myself, were present his wife and son
with his newly-married bride; the wife appeared a quiet respectable
woman, and the young people looked very happy and good-natured; not so
the publisher, who occasionally eyed both with contempt and dislike.
Connected with this dinner there was one thing remarkable; the publisher
took no animal food, but contented himself with feeding voraciously on
rice and vegetables prepared in various ways.

'You eat no animal food, sir?' said I.

'I do not, sir,' said he; 'I have forsworn it upwards of twenty years. In
one respect, sir, I am a Brahmin. I abhor taking away life--the brutes
have as much right to live as ourselves.'

'But,' said I, 'if the brutes were not killed, there would be such a
superabundance of them, that the land would be overrun with them.'

'I do not think so, sir; few are killed in India, and yet there is plenty
of room.'

'But,' said I, 'Nature intended that they should be destroyed, and the
brutes themselves prey upon one another, and it is well for themselves
and the world that they do so. What would be the state of things if
every insect, bird, and worm were left to perish of old age?'

'We will change the subject,' said the publisher; 'I have never been a
friend of unprofitable discussions.'

I looked at the publisher with some surprise, I had not been accustomed
to be spoken to so magisterially; his countenance was dressed in a
portentous frown, and his eye looked more sinister than ever; at that
moment he put me in mind of some of those despots of whom I had read in
the history of Morocco, whose word was law. He merely wants power,
thought I to myself, to be a regular Muley Mehemet; and then I si