“But what?--what?--how was it?”
“Sir”--cried I, not well understanding him.
“How came you--how happened it--what?--what?”
“I--I only wrote, Sir, for my own amusement,--only in some odd, idle
hours.”
“But your publishing--your printing,--how was that?
“That was only, sir,--only because--”
I hesitated most abominably, not knowing how to tell him a long story,
and growing terribly confused at these questions;--besides,--to say the
truth, his own “what? what?” so reminded me of those vile “Probationary
Odes,” that, in the midst of all my flutter, I was really hardly able to
keep my countenance.
The What! was then repeated, with so earnest a look, that, forced to say
something, I stammeringly answered--
“I thought-sir-it would look very well in print!”
I do really flatter myself this is the silliest speech I ever made! I am
quite provoked with myself for it; but a fear of laughing made me eager
to utter anything, and by no means conscious, till I had spoken, of
what I was saying. He laughed very heartily himself,--well he might--and
walked away to enjoy it, crying out,
“Very fair indeed! that's being very fair and honest.”
Then, returning to me again, he said,
“But your father--how came you not to show him what you wrote?”
“I was too much ashamed of it, sir, seriously.”
Literal truth that, I am sure.
“And how did he find it out?
“I don't know myself, sir. He never would tell me.”
Literal truth again, my dear father, as you can testify.
“But how did you get it printed?”
“I sent it, sir, to a bookseller my father never employed, and that I
never had seen myself, Mr. Lowndes, in full hope by that means he never
would hear of it.”
“But how could you manage that?”
“By means of a brother, sir.”
“O!--you confided in a brother, then?”
“Yes, sir,--that is, for the publication.”
“What entertainment you must have had from hearing people's conjectures,
before you were known! Do you remember any of them?”
“Yes, sir, many.”
“And what?”
“I heard that Mr. Baretti[194] laid a wager it was written by a man for
no woman, he said, could have kept her own counsel.”
This diverted him extremely.
“But how was it,” he continued, “you thought most likely for your father
to discover you?”
“Sometimes, sir, I have supposed I must have dropt some of the
manuscript; sometimes, that one of my sisters betrayed me.”
“O! your sister?--what, not your brother?”
“No, sir; he could not, for--”