The satirist stood in his publisher's back parlour, and, through the
dusty glass of the partition, observed the Exquisite Mob purchase their
castigation.
"'Tis strange," he pondered, "that mankind should be willing to pay
four-and-sixpence to be laughed at. Yet it is!"
Mr. Lovely was awaiting a draught for one hundred guineas, and Mr. Paul
Virgin, glad of anything that would delay for a while such an unwelcome
disbursement, continued to bow and smirk over the counter as the neat
little piles of new volumes speedily diminished. At last the hour for
the midday meal arrived with a temporary lull in the storm of
purchasers. Mr. Virgin turned with a sigh into his little back parlour
and, wading carefully through the heaps of uncatalogued tomes, set out
with a wry face to unlock his walnut writing-cabinet.
"We were hurried too much, Mr. Lovely, sir. We han't had leisure to bind
the book as it should be bound. Ye would hurry us so, Mr. Lovely."
"You wouldn't pay me till the book was published, and I want the money,
so d----n all grumbling and be grateful that you'll make a small
fortune."
"A small fortune! What a jester you are, Mr. Lovely. I declare you put
me in mind of the old plays, such jests!"
Mr. Paul Virgin seated before his cabinet, was writing the draught with
tardy fingers.
"There ye are, Mr. Lovely, and never say I don't treat ye with
consideration, with generosity, sir, for I dare swear I shall lose fifty
pounds sterling by this adventure."
"Be d----d, you peevish rogue. Why all the world of fashion has
thronged your shop since nine o'clock this morning."
"Yes, but it takes a deal to make a hundred guineas. Now let me make it
pounds, Mr. Lovely, sir. Do let me make it pounds."
The latter snatched the draught from the old young bookseller and,
having read it through with much deliberation, transferred it to the
seclusion of his innermost pocket.
After this transaction, which was effected with a singular grace, I am
sorry to add that he put his tapered finger to his tapered nose and
winked several times at the disconsolate Mr. Virgin.
"The books are so ill-bound, look at this one, Mr. Lovely, your honour.
The leaves are falling apart already, just because you would hurry us so
terribly."
Mr. Lovely stooped and picked up some loose pages.
"Ay, 'tis autumn already with this copy," he said, glancing casually at
the page he held in his hand. "Why who wrote this?"
"You did, Mr. Lovely, you did."
"I wrote this--this d----d vile verse, this--" and Charles read aloud
the lines that so dismayed our heroine. "I wrote this damnable doggerel?
By G----, Mr. Virgin, I never wrote this."
"Why, who else could have written it?"
"That's what I want to know. Come back, you hound," shouted the irate
author, grabbing his publisher by the tails of his coat, just as he was
edging his way back to the shop. "Come back," he said, jerking him over
Mr. Bayle's Dictionary. "You moth-eaten vagabond, you impostor, you
thief." Charles began to belabour Mr. Virgin with a folio copy of the
_Anatomy of Melancholy_. Round and round the little back parlour he
thumped the publisher; the dust rose from innumerable ancient tomes.
Surely never were books so rudely disturbed since the niece and the
Padre flung the library of the illustrious Don Quixote de la Mancha out
of the window, and burned a hundred volumes of chivalry.
"How came these d----d lines into my book, eh, sir, answer me that,
sir," and having dissected the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Charles picked
up Sir Roger L'Estrange's translation of AEsop to continue the assault.
"I don't understand, Mr. Lovely, sir. Pray desist, Mr. Lovely, your
honour, sir. The printer must have printed them."
"'Sdeath and fury! you rascal, I know that. Who wrote them, who wrote
them?"
In order to supply the correct twirl to this note of interrogation,
Charles flung the little bookseller to the farthest corner of his little
back parlour, at the same time arming himself with half a dozen fresh
volumes.
Mr. Virgin cowered in the dust and cobwebs.
"Who wrote them?" Charles demanded.
"I don't----"
"What!" and the--th volume of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, newly arrived
from the binder, winged its way in the direction of the quivering
bookseller. This he ducked to avoid, but even as he ducked, the five
volumes of Mr. Ozell's revision of Urquhart and Motteux' _Rabelais_
burst over him like an exploded hand grenade.
"Who wrote them?"
"Truly I don't----"
This time Mr. Prior's _Poems on Several Occasions_ carried his wig into
obscurity, and the owner clapped a hand to his head just in time to
receive the bevelled morocco edges of the _Beggar's Opera_ full on the
fingers.
"Mr. Lovely, sir, you are too violent."
"Violent, you dog? By G---- if you don't give the name of the son of a
w---- that wrote these damnable lines, I'll flay you alive and bind my
next edition of poems with your lousy skin." The foxy-faced old young
man commenced to wring his hands.
"Mr. Lovely," he almost screamed. "Mr. Lovely, you're mad--go out of my
shop."
"Who wrote those lines? Answer, or I'll break up your shop--ay! break it
up with your own sign-board. At the Sign of the Woman--at the Sign of
the Strumpet! Answer me, you lickspittle vermin, answer me."
Charles had now seized his wretched publisher by the neck-band, and
shook him so roughly that the latter, fearing for his teeth, the most
extravagant purchase in his mean little life, began to whine.
"A gentleman--a gentleman----"
"Well, you misbegotten toad, I never supposed 'twas a midwife."
"No, certainly not, Mr. Lovely, a gentleman--a gentleman."
"His name, dog."
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do, answer will you."
"He told me 'twas Amor."
"I knew it, I knew it, you sneaking son of a b----, and he gave you
twenty guineas to print the verses."
"No, not twenty, only ten, Mr. Lovely, on my soul."
"On your soul! H---- l take your soul! Why you were spawned in a ditch,
you viper. So you let my honour go for ten guineas. Give them to me."
"Oh! Mr. Lovely."
"Give them to me."
The miserable little old young man produced the money, unluckily for
himself, in paper.
"Now since you love money so dearly, by heaven, you shall eat money."
And Mr. Lovely, making a bolus of the bribe, crammed it down the
reluctant bookseller's throat with his own ruler. Then our hero walked
out of the shop.
I hope you will not deny this scene was in the true vein of heroism.
Aye! aye! 'tis full of bombast as you very properly observe, ma'am or
sir; but that is the part of a hero. He must follow the Prince of
Denmark's directions to the players. Aye! aye! and 'tis full of wind,
but so was the great Montgolfier balloon, and surely every aeronaut is a
hero, even in his descents at the tail-end of a parachute.
So pray judge Mr. Lovely, not as a man, but as a hero, for I think
you'll do me the justice to admit I never tried to conceal his position.
But he owes the villain a considerable sum of money. Of course he does,
and this awkward fact is perplexing him very much indeed as he strides
down Curtain High Street. To tell the truth, when he emerged from Mr.
Virgin's shop, he found that when the Fates dipped him into Styx, they
made the same mistake as Madame Thetis, with this difference, that,
whereas Achilles was left with a vulnerable heel, our hero preserved a
vulnerable conscience.
It would have been mighty heroick to march into the _Blue Boar_, run Mr.
Vernon through the lungs, wed the injured heroine and tread after death
the golden fields of Elysium; but his silly conscience would not allow
him to kill a man to whom he was under a monetary obligation.
So he borrowed four hundred guineas from Mr. Antony Clare, who could ill
afford the loan, and putting this sum with what he had earned from
lashing the Curtain Polls in an extra thick paper envelope, he sealed it
with his own heroick seal. This fulfilment of earthly debts he sent up
to Mr. Francis Vernon by the hand of Mr. Daish himself, and set to work
to make his conscience less vulnerable by many consecutive pints of
heroick Burgundy.
You thought that he was going to turn out poor humanity after bullying
Mr. Virgin so heroically? Egad, ma'am or sir, you thought wrong. You
doubt anybody can be a Burgundian hero? So he can; there has been more
than one Charles the Bold of Burgundy.
The very word is as fire to the most pusillanimous: the very thought of
its crimson depths should set us all tilting.
'Bring me a quart bottle of Burgundy.' The phrase is like a trumpet-call
outside the keep of Paradise.
'Bring me another quart of Burgundy.' Down goes the portcullis before
the hero's charge.
Port may turn a man into a hero--in his dreams; yet I doubt they are too
heavy. As for Sherry, it will serve to sharpen the wits of a dried-up
attorney, but is poor stuff to weave into heroes. On Champagne, a man
will talk like the crew of the _Argo_, but there's the end of the whole
business.
Charles drank Burgundy and I promise you some fine heroicks presently.
_Chapter the Twenty-third_