"The wretch!" groaned Uncle Jack.
"Another thought it might be cut up into little essays, leaving out the quotations, entitled 'Men and Manners.'"
"A third was kind enough to observe, that though this particular work was quite unsaleable, yet as I appeared to have some historical information, he should be happy to undertake a historical romance from 'my graphic pen' – that was the phrase, was it not, Jack?"
Jack was too full to speak. – "Provided I would introduce a proper love-plot, and make it into three volumes post octavo, twenty-three lines in a page, neither more nor less. One honest fellow at last was found, who seemed to me a very respectable and indeed enterprising person. And after going through a list of calculations, which showed that no possible profit could arise, he generously offered to give me half of those no-profits, provided I would guarantee half the very visible expenses. I was just meditating the prudence of accepting this proposal, when your uncle was seized with a sublime idea, which has whisked up my book in a whirlwind of expectation."
"And that idea?" said I despondently.
"That idea," quoth Uncle Jack, recovering himself, "is simply and shortly this. From time immemorial authors have been the prey of the publishers. Sir, authors have lived in garrets, nay, have been choked in the street by an unexpected crumb of bread, like the man who wrote the play, poor fellow!"
"Otway," said my father. "The story is not true – no matter."
"Milton, sir, as every body knows, sold Paradise Lost for ten pounds – ten pounds, sir! In short, instances of a like nature are too numerous to quote. But the booksellers, sir, – they are leviathans – they roll in seas of gold. They subsist upon authors as vampires upon little children. But at last endurance has reached its limit – the fiat has gone forth – the tocsin of liberty has resounded – authors have burst their fetters. And we have just inaugurated the institution of 'The Grand Anti-Publisher Confederate Authors' Society,' by which, Pisistratus – by which, mark you, every author is to be his own publisher; that is, every author who joins the Society. No more submission of immortal works to mercenary calculators, to sordid tastes – no more hard bargains and broken hearts! – no more crumbs of bread choking great tragic poets in the streets – no more Paradises Lost sold at £10 a-piece! The author brings his book to a select committee appointed for the purpose; men of delicacy, education, and refinement – authors themselves – they read it, the Society publish; and after a modest commission towards the funds of the Society, the treasurer hands over the profits to the author."
"So that in fact, Uncle, every author who can't find a publisher any where else, will of course come to the Society. The fraternity will be numerous!"
"It will indeed."
"And the speculation – ruinous?"
"Ruinous, why?"
"Because in all mercantile negotiations it is ruinous to invest capital in supplies which fail of demand. You undertake to publish books that booksellers will not publish. Why? because booksellers can't sell them! It is just probable that you'll not sell them any better than the booksellers. Ergo, the more your business the larger your deficit. And the more numerous your society, the more disastrous your condition. Q.E.D."
"Pooh! The select committee will decide what books are to be published."
"Then where the deuce is the advantage to the authors? I would as lief submit my work to a publisher as I would to a select committee of authors. At all events, the publisher is not my rival; and I suspect he is the best judge, after all, of a book – as an accoucheur ought to be of a baby."
"Upon my word, nephew, you pay a bad compliment to your father's great work, which the booksellers will have nothing to do with."
That was artfully said, and I was posed; when Mr Caxton observed, with an apologetic smile —
"The fact is, my dear Pisistratus, that I want my book published without diminishing the little fortune I keep for you some day. Uncle Jack starts a society so to publish it. – Health and long life to Uncle Jack's society! One can't look a gift-horse in the mouth."
Here my mother entered, rosy from a shopping expedition with Mrs Primmins; and in her joy at hearing that I could stay dinner, all else was forgotten. By a wonder, which I did not regret, Uncle Jack really was engaged to dine out. He had other irons in the fire besides the "Literary Times" and the "Confederate Authors' Society;" he was deep in a scheme for making house-tops of felt, (which, under other hands, has, I believe, since succeeded;) and he had found a rich man (I suppose a hatter) who seemed well inclined to the project, and had actually asked him to dine and expound his views!
CHAPTER XXVIII
Here we three are seated round the open window – after dinner – familiar as in the old happy time – and my mother is talking low that she may not disturb my father, who seems in thought. —
Cr-cr-crrr-cr-cr! I feel it – I have it. – Where! What! Where! Knock it down – brush it off! For Heaven's sake, see to it! – Crrrr-crrrrr – there – here – in my hair – in my sleeve – in my ear. – Cr-cr.
I say solemnly, and on the word of a Christian, that, as I sate down to begin this chapter, being somewhat in a brown study, the pen insensibly slipt from my hand, and, leaning back in my chair, I fell to gazing into the fire. It is the end of June, and a remarkably cold evening – even for that time of year. And while I was so gazing, I felt something crawling, just by the nape of the neck, ma'am. Instinctively and mechanically, and still musing, I put my hand there, and drew forth – What? That what it is which perplexes me. It was a thing – a dark thing – a much bigger thing than I had expected. And the sight took me so by surprise that I gave my hand a violent shake, and the thing went – where I know not. The what and the where are the knotty points in the whole question! No sooner had it gone than I was seized with repentance not to have examined it more closely – not to have ascertained what the creature was. It might have been an earwig – a very large motherly earwig – an earwig far gone in that way in which earwigs wish to be who love their lords. I have a profound horror of earwigs – I firmly believe that they do get into the ear. That is a subject on which it is useless to argue with me upon philosophical grounds. I have a vivid recollection of a story told me by Mrs Primmins – How a lady for many years suffered under the most excruciating headaches; how, as the tombstones say, "physicians were in vain;" how she died; how her head was opened, and how such a nest of earwigs – ma'am – such a nest! – Earwigs are the prolifickest things, and so fond of their offspring! They sit on their eggs like hens – and the young, as soon as they are born, creep under them for protection – quite touchingly! Imagine such an establishment domesticated at one's tympanum!
But the creature was certainly larger than an earwig. It might have been one of that genus in the family of Forficulidæ, called Labidoura– monsters whose antennæ have thirty joints! There is a species of this creature in England, but, to the great grief of naturalists, and to the great honour of Providence, very rarely found, infinitely larger than the common earwig or Forficulida auriculana. Could it have been an early hornet? It had certainly a black head, and great feelers. I have a greater horror of hornets, if possible, than I have of earwigs. Two hornets will kill a man, and three a carriage-horse sixteen hands high. However, the creature was gone. – Yes, but where? Where had I so rashly thrown it? It might have got into a fold of my dressing-gown – or into my slippers – or, in short, any where, in the various recesses for earwigs and hornets which a gentleman's habiliments afford. I satisfy myself at last, as far as I can, seeing that I am not alone in the room – that it is not upon me. I look upon the carpet – the rug – the chair – under the fender. It is non inventus. I barbarously hope it is frizzing behind that great black coal in the grate. I pluck up courage – I prudently remove, to the other end of the room. I take up my pen – I begin my chapter – very nicely, too, I think upon the whole. I am just getting into my subject, when – cr-cr-cr-cr-cr-crawl – crawl – crawl – creep – creep – creep. Exactly, my dear ma'am, in the same place it was before! Oh, by the Powers! I forgot all my scientific regrets at not having scrutinised its genus before, whether Forficulida or Labidoura.