[Illustration: "Your Visitor has his Note-book out."]
"I _have_ the pleasure of addressing Mr. MARK LANE, I think?" he says.
"Just so. Well, Mr. MARK LANE, I consider myself extremely fortunate
in finding you at home, I assure you, and a very charming place
you have here--abundant evidence of a refined and cultivated mind,
excellent selection of our best-known writers, everything, if I may
say so, elegant in the extreme--as was to be expected! Even from the
cursory glimpse I have had, I can see that your interior would lend
itself admirably to picturesque description--which brings me to the
object of my visit. I have called upon you, Mr. LANE, in the hope of
eliciting your sympathy and patronage for a work I am now compiling--a
work which will, I am confident, commend itself to a gentleman of your
wide culture and interest in literary matters." (_Here you will look
as judicial as you can, and harden your heart in advance against a
new Encyclopaedia, or an illustrated edition of_ SHAKSPEARE's _works_.)
"The work I allude to, Mr. LANE, is entitled, _Notable Nonentities
of Norwood and its Neighbourhood." (Here you will nod gravely,
rather taken by the title._) "It will be published very shortly, by
subscription, Mr. LANE, in two handsome quarto volumes, got up in
the most sumptuous style.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25