"If you can answer that letter, sir," Mr. Paul Boldside resumed, "the
better it will be, I can tell you, for the sale of your publication."
Mr. Vimpany made a reckless reply: "I want to know how the thing sells.
Never mind the letter."
"Never mind the letter?" the junior partner repeated. "A positive
charge of fraud is advanced by a man at the head of his profession
against a work which we have published--and you say, Never mind the
letter."
The rough customer of the Boldsides struck his fist on the table.
"Bother the letter! I insist on knowing what the sale is."
Still preserving his dignity, Mr. Paul (like Mr. Peter) rang for the
clerk, and briefly gave an order. "Mr. Vimpany's account," he said--and
proceeded to admonish Mr. Vimpany himself.
"You appear, sir, to have no defence of your conduct to offer. Our firm
has a reputation to preserve. When I have consulted with my brother, we
shall be under the disagreeable necessity--"
Here (as he afterwards told his brother) the publisher was brutally
interrupted by the author: "If you will have it," said this rude man, "here it is in two words.
The doctor's portrait is the likeness of an ass. As he couldn't do it
himself, I wanted materials for writing his life. He referred me to the
year of his birth, the year of his marriage, the year of this, that,
and the other. Who cares about dates? The public likes to be tickled by
personal statements. Very well--I tickled the public. There you have it
in a nutshell."
The clerk appeared at that auspicious moment, with the author's account
neatly exhibited under two sides: a Debtor side, which represented the
expenditure of Hugh Mountjoy's money; and a Creditor side, which
represented (so far) Mr. Vimpany's profits. Amount of these last: 3l.
14s. 10d.
Mr. Vimpany tore up the account, threw the pieces in the face of Mr.
Paul, and expressed his sentiments in one opprobrious word:
"Swindlers!"
The publisher said: "You shall hear of us, sir, through our lawyer."
And the author answered: "Go to the devil!"
Once out in the streets again, the first open door at which Mr. Vimpany
stopped was the door of a tavern. He ordered a glass of brandy and
water, and a cigar.
It was then the hour of the afternoon, between the time of luncheon and
the time of dinner, when the business of a tavern is generally in a
state of suspense. The dining-room was empty when Mr. Vimpany entered
it: and the waiter's unoccupied attention was in want of an object.
Having nothing else to notice, he looked at the person who had just
come in. The deluded stranger was drinking fiery potato-brandy, and
smoking (at the foreign price) an English cigar. Would his taste tell
him the melancholy truth? No: it seemed to matter nothing to him what
he was drinking or what he was smoking. Now he looked angry, and now he
looked puzzled; and now he took a long letter from his pocket, and read
it in places, and marked the places with a pencil. "Up to some
mischief," was the waiter's interpretation of these signs. The stranger
ordered a second glass of grog, and drank it in gulps, and fell into
such deep thought that he let his cigar go out. Evidently, a man in
search of an idea. And, to all appearance, he found what he wanted on a
sudden. In a hurry he paid his reckoning, and left his small change and
his unfinished cigar on the table, and was off before the waiter could
say, "Thank you."