OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
The Baron is getting along with GEORGE MEREDITH's One of Our Conquerors. Within the last three weeks he has already reached p. 94 of Vol. I, and here the weather, having suddenly become tropical, the Baron felt that his mighty brain "whirled, swam to a giddiness, and subsided." He has been stopped occasionally en route; he had come into view of "the diminutive marble cavalier of the infantile cerebellum." Then he retraced his steps, puzzled a bit, but after a "modest quencher" Swivellerian libation, he hit upon a luminous passage which warned him "in plain speech"—and whose is plainer than GEORGE MEREDITH's?—"that the Bacchus of auspicious birth induces ever to the worship of the loftier Deities." Excellent i' faith! And then the Baron smole, as one who is interiorly enlightened smileth as he read, "Forbear to come hauling up examples of malarious men"—("'malarious men' is good," quoth the Baron)—"in whom these pourings of the golden rays of life breed fogs; and be moved, since you are scarcely under an obligation to hunt the meaning"—(here the Baron wondered within himself. Was he under an obligation or not? In foro conscientiæ the case was set down for that immortal date. "To-morrow")—"in tolerance of some dithyrambic inebriety of narration (quiverings of the reverent pen) when we find ourselves entering the circle of a most magnetic popularity." Here the Baron paused. Somehow, in his search after truth, he had fallen down some seventy pages, and was on his back again at p. 33, Vol. I. Refreshment was necessary. Iced. Also a Nicotinian sacrifice, as of primitive days, when heifers, adorned, not altars, but weeds, vegetables, and early produce only. Smokeamus! Veni, vidi, visky! 'Fore GEORGE! Your health and novel!
THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.