Prince Fortunatus. Black William

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СКАЧАТЬ that's the very thing, my dear fellow!" Lionel Moore cried, as he was getting on his white silk stockings. "The very thing! She wants attention drawn to the book. She doesn't want to be passed over. She wants to have the name of the book and the name of the author brought before the public—"

      "Her real name?"

      "Yes, certainly, if that is advisable."

      "Oh, well, there's not much trouble about that. You can always minister to a mind diseased by a morbid craving for notoriety if a paragraph in a country newspaper will suffice. So this is part of what your fashionable friends expect from you, Linn, in return for their patronage?"

      "It's nothing of the kind; she would do as much for me, if she knew how, or if there were any occasion."

      "Oh, well, it is no great thing," said Mangan, who was really a very good-natured sort of person, despite his supercilious talk. "In fact, you might do her ladyship a more substantial service than that."

      "How?"

      "I thought you knew Quirk—Octavius Quirk?"

      "But you have always spoken so disparagingly of him!" the other exclaimed.

      "What has that to do with it?" Mangan asked; and then he continued, in his indolent fashion: "Why, I thought you knew all about Quirk. Quirk belongs to a band of literary weaklings, not any one of whom can do anything worth speaking of; but they try their best to write up one another; and sometimes they take it into their heads to help an acquaintance—and then their cry is like that of a pack of beagles? you would think the press of London, or a considerable section of it, had but one voice. Why don't you take Lady Arthur's—Lady Constance's—what's her name?—why don't you take her book to the noble association of log-rollers? I presume the novel is trash; they'll welcome it all the more. She is a woman—she is not to be feared; she hasn't as yet committed the crime of being successful—she isn't to be envied and anonymously attacked. That's the ticket for you, Linn. They mayn't convince the public that Lady What's-her-name is a wonderful person; but they will convince her that she is; and what more does she want?"

      "I don't understand you, Maurice!" the young baritone cried, almost angrily. "Again and again you've spoken of Octavius Quirk as if he were beneath contempt."

      "What has that to do with it?" the other repeated, placidly. "As an independent writer, Quirk is quite beneath contempt—quite. There is no backbone in his writing at all, and he knows his own weakness; and he thinks he can conceal it by the use of furious adjectives. He is always in a frantic rush and flurry, that produces no impression on anybody. A whirlwind of feathers, that's about it. He goes out into the highway and brandishes a double-handed sword—in order to sweep off the head of a buttercup. And I suppose he expects the public to believe that his wild language, all about nothing, means strength; just as he hopes that they will take his noisy horse-laugh for humor. That's Octavius Quirk as a writer—a nobody, a nothing, a wisp of straw in convulsions; but as a puffer—ah, there you have him!—as a puffer, magnificent, glorious, a Greek hero, invincible, invulnerable. My good man, it's Octavius Quirk you should go to! Get him to call on his pack of beagles to give tongue; and then, my goodness, you'll hear a cry—for a while at least. Is there anything at all in the book?"

      "I don't know," said Harry Thornhill, who had changed quickly, and was now regaling himself with a little of Miss Burgoyne's lemonade, with which the prima-donna was so kind as to keep him supplied. "Well, now, I shall be on the stage some time; what do you say to looking over Lady Adela's novel?"

      "All right."

      There was a tapping at the door; it was the call-boy.

      But Lionel Moore did not immediately answer the summons.

      "Look here, Maurice; if you should find anything in the book—anything you could say a word in favor of—I wish you'd come round to the Garden Club with me, after the performance, and have a bit of supper. Octavius Quirk is almost sure to be there."

      "What, Quirk? I thought the Garden was given over to dukes and comic actors?"

      "There's a sprinkling of everybody in it," the young baritone said; "and Quirk likes it because it is an all-night club—he never seems to go to bed at all. Will you do that?"

      "Oh, yes," Maurice Mangan said; and forthwith, as his friend left the dressing-room, he plunged into Lady Adela's novel.

      The last act of "The Squire's Daughter" is longer than its predecessors; so that Mangan had plenty of time to acquire some general knowledge of the character and contents of these three volumes. Indeed, he had more than time for all the brief scrutiny he deemed necessary; when Lionel Moore reappeared, to get finally quit of his theatrical trappings for the night, his friend was standing at the fireplace, looking at a sketch in brown chalk of Miss Burgoyne, which that amiable young lady had herself presented to Harry Thornhill.

      "Well, what's the verdict?"

      Mangan turned round, rather bewildered; and then he recollected that he had been glancing at the novel.

      "Oh, that!" he said, regarding the three volumes with no very favorable air, "Mighty poor stuff, I should say; just about as weak as they make it. But harmless. Some of the conversation—between the women—is natural; trivial, but natural. The plain truth is, my dear Linn, it is a very foolish, stupid book, which should never have been printed at all; but I suppose your fashionable friend could afford to pay for having it printed."

      "But, look here, Maurice," Lionel said, in considerable surprise, "I don't see how it can be so very stupid, when Lady Adela herself is one of the brightest, cleverest, shrewdest, most intelligent women you could meet with anywhere—quite unusually so."

      "That may be; but she is not the first clever woman who has made the mistake of imagining that because she is socially popular she must therefore be able to write a book."

      "And what am I to say to Octavius Quirk?"

      "What are you to say to the log-rollers? Don't say anything. Get Lady Adela to ask one or two of them to dinner. You'll fetch Quirk that way easily; they say Gargantua was a fool compared to him."

      "I've seen him do pretty well at the Garden, especially about two in the morning," was the young baritone's comment; and then, as he began to get into his ordinary attire, he said, "To tell you the truth, Maurice, Lady Adela rather hinted that she would be pleased to make the acquaintance of any—of any literary man—"

      "Who could do her book a good turn?"

      "No, you needn't put it as rudely as that. She rather feels that, in becoming an authoress, she has allied herself with literary people—and would naturally like to make acquaintances; so, if it came to that, I should consider myself empowered to ask Quirk whether he would accept an invitation to dinner—I mean, at Cunyngham Lodge. It's no use asking you, Maurice?" he added, with a little hesitation.

      Maurice Mangan laughed.

      "No, no, Linn, my boy; thank you all the same, I say," he continued, as he took up his hat and stick, seeing that Lionel was about ready to go, "do you ever hear from Miss Francie Wright, or have you forgotten her among all your fine friends?"

      "Oh, I hear from Francie sometimes," he answered, carelessly, "or about her, anyway, whenever I get a letter from home. She's very well. Boarding out pauper sick children is her new fad; and I believe she's very busy and very happy over it. Come along, Maurice; we'll walk up to the Garden, СКАЧАТЬ