in his noble work on poesy,'

"Three. 'This man doesn't know how to write his own language.'

"As I am a poet, fancy my state of mind! I am horribly cast down; don't
like to go out to dinner; am sure my butler, having read these reviews,
despises me as an impostor; but while I sit sulking, in comes a dear
friend and brother-poet. 'How do you know,' says he, 'that Snooks didn't
write number one himself? Or perhaps one of his clique did, for whom he
is to do the same thing.' I immediately shake hands with him. This is
evidently his candid opinion, and I love candour in a friend; besides,
we both hate Snooks. 'And it is a well-known fact,' he continues with
friendly warmth, 'that Small's great work won't sell; how do you know
that number two was not written by a brother or friend of the
publisher's, by way of an advertisement for it?' By this time I am
almost consoled. Something strikes me with irresistible force. I
remember that that fellow Smith, who contested with me the election for
the borough of Wigfield in eighteen hundred and fifty or sixty, has
taken to literature. He was at the head of the poll on that occasion,
but my committee proving that he bribed, he lost his seat. I came in. It
was said that I bribed too; but to discuss that now would be out of
place. I feel sure that Smith must have written number three. In fact he
said those very words concerning me on the hustings."

"Gladys," said Brandon, observing the child's deep attention, "it is
right you should know that the brother-poet had written a tragedy on
tin-tacks. Your father reviewed it, and said no family ought to be
without it."

"But you didn't bribe father, and you didn't copy from Snooks, I am
sure," said Gladys, determined to defend her father, even in his assumed
character.

"What was the name of your _thing_, papa?" asked Barbara.

"I don't know, my dear, I have not considered that matter."

"It was called 'The Burglar's Betrothal,'" said Valentine.

"And do you think that Snooks really wrote that review?" she continued,
contemplating her father through her eyeglass, for she was shortsighted.

"If you ask my sincere opinion, my dear, I must say that I think he did
not; but if some other man had signed it, I should have been sure. Which
now I never shall be."

Here the door was slowly opened, and the portly butler appeared, bearing
in his own hands a fine dish of potatoes; from the same plot, he
remarked to John, with those that had ob