第98章 CHAPTER XXVI(3)

"Then she: O shaper of the marvellous phrase That openeth woman's heart as Both a key, I dare not hear thee--lest the bolt should slide That locks another's heart within my own.

Go, leave me,--and she let her eyelids fall, And the great tears rolled from her large blue eyes.

"Then I: If thou not hear me, I shall die, Yea, in my desperate mood may lift my hand And do myself a hurt no leach can mend;For poets ever were of dark resolve, And swift stern deed That maiden heard no more, But spike: Alas! my heart is very weak, And but for--Stay! And if some dreadful morn, After great search and shouting thorough the wold, We found thee missing,--strangled,--drowned i' the mere, Then should I go distraught and be clean mad!

O poet, read! read all thy wondrous scrolls.

Yea, read the verse that maketh glad to hear!

Then I began and read two sweet, brief hours, And she forgot all love save only mine!""Is all this from real life?" asked the publisher.

"It--no, sir--not exactly from real life--that is, the leading female person is not wholly fictitious--and the incident is one which might have happened. Shall I read you the poems referred to in the one you have just heard, sir?""Allow me, one moment. Two hours' reading, I think, you said. Ifear I shall hardly be able to spare quite time to hear them a11.

Let me ask what you intend doing with these productions, Mr.--- rr Poplins.""Hopkins, if you please, sir, not Poplins," said Gifted, plaintively.

He expressed his willingness to dispose of the copyright, to publish on shares, or perhaps to receive a certain percentage on the profits.

"Suppose we take a glass of wine together, Mr.--Hopkins, before we talk business," the publisher said, opening a little cupboard and taking therefrom a decanter and two glasses. He saw the young man was looking nervous. He waited a few minutes, until the wine had comforted his epigastrium, and diffused its gentle glow through his unspoiled and consequently susceptible organisation.

"Come with me," he said.

Gifted followed him into a dingy apartment in the attic, where one sat at a great table heaped and piled with manuscripts. By him was a huge basket, ha'f full of manuscripts also. As they entered he dropped another manuscript into the basket and looked up.

"Tell me," said Gifted, " what are these papers, and who is he that looks upon them and drops them into the basket?""These are the manuscript poems that we receive, and the one sitting at the table is commonly spoken of among us as The Butcher. The poems he drops into the basket are those rejected as of no account""But does he not read the poems before he rejects them?""He tastes them. Do you eat a cheese before you buy it?""And what becomes of all those that he drops into the basket?""If they are not claimed by their author in proper season, they go to the devil.""What!" said Gifted, with his eyes stretched very round.

"To the paper factory, where they have a horrid machine they call the devil, that tears everything to bits,--as the critics treat our authors, sometimes, sometimes, Mr. Hopkins."Gifted devoted a moment to silent reflection.

After this instructive sight they returned together to the publisher's private room. The wine had now warmed the youthful poet's praecordia, so that he began to feel a renewed confidence in his genius and his fortunes.

"I should like to know what that critic of yours would say to my manuscript," he said boldly.

"You can try it if you want to," the publisher replied, with an ominous dryness of manner which the sanguine youth did not perceive, or, perceiving, did not heed.

"How can we manage to get an impartial judgment?""Oh, I'll arrange that. He always goes to his luncheon about this time. Raw meat and vitriol punch,--that 's what the authors say.

Wait till we hear him go, and then I will lay your manuscript so that he will come to it among the first after he gets back. You shall see with your own eyes what treatment it gets. I hope it may please him, but you shall see."They went back to the publisher's private room and talked awhile.

Then the little office-boy came up with some vague message about a gentleman--business--wants to see you, sir, etc., according to the established programme; all in a vacant, mechanical sort of way, as if he were a talking-machine just running down.

The publisher told the boy that he was engaged, and the gentleman must wait. Very soon they heard The Butcher's heavy footstep as he went out to get his raw meat and vitriol punch.

Now, then," said the publisher, and led forth the confiding literary lamb once more, to enter the fatal door of the critical shambles.