"DEAR MR. ST. BARBE,--I know how busy you are, but you can always spare an hour or two for the work of a friend. My _Love well Lost_, in three volumes, is on its way to you. I wish you to review it in all the periodicals with which you are connected. Last time I wrote a novel, my nephew reviewed it, very perfunctorily, in the _Pandrosium_; this time I want only to be reviewed by my _friends_." He was kicking on the sofa, and apparently trying to commit suicide with the pillows.
"Command yourself, ST. BARBE," I said; "this behaviour is unworthy either of a Christian or a philosopher. These letters, which irritate you so much, are conceived in a spirit of respectful admiration. The books which you have been heaving through the window are, no doubt, of interest and value."
"Waste paper, every one of them," he moaned. Then he added, as he rumpled his hair in a frantic manner, "I'd like to see _you_, old cock, if you had to live this life! It isn't living, it's answering humbugging letters, and opening brown-paper parcels, all day long, all the weary day. And my temper, which was angelic, and my manners, which were the mirror of courtesy, are irretrievably ruined. And my time is wasted, and my stationer's bill is mere perdition. It begins in the morning; I try to be calm; I sit down to write replies to all these pestilent idiots."
"They're _not_ admirers; they only cadge for reviews. Time was, they say, when critics were bribed. Ha! ha! _Now_ they all expect to be praised for nothing. And the parcels of books they send." Here I noticed a London Parcels Delivery van, laden with brown-paper packages of books. Quickly the maid rushed out, and induced the driver to remember that he was a family man, and he went on his way without calling.
"They come all day long," my poor friend went on, "and all of them are trash, rubbish that they shoot here; _shoot_, ha! ha'" and he took down a Winchester rifle, and crept stealthily to the window. Luckily none of his enemies were in view.
"No waste-paper basket is big enough to hold them all," he said, ruefully, "and once a week I make a clearance. The neighbours are beginning to murmur," he added, "There is no sympathy, in England, for a man of letters. Letters, indeed! I write them all day to these impostors, these amateurs;" and he bit a large piece out of a glass, which was standing handy.