At length, and when the struggle between the competitors was at its height, one of his drivers rushed frantically into his office one day, crying out, “Give a crown-piece to drink your honor's health for what I done to-day.”
“What was it, Larry?”
“I killed the yallow mare of the opposition car; I passed her on the long hill, when she was blown, and I bruk her heart before she reached the top.”
“After this I gave up the opposition,” said my friend; “'mocking was catching,' as the old proverb says; and I thought that one might carry a joke a little too far.”
I had this experience before me, and I will not say it did not impress me. My puzzle was, however, in this wise: I imagined I did not care on which horse I stood to win; in other words, I persuaded myself that it was a matter of perfect indifference to me which book took best with the public, and whether the reader thought better of “The Daltons” or “Con Cregan,” that it could in no way concern me.
That I totally misunderstood myself, or misconceived the case before me, I am now quite ready to own. For one notice of “The Daltons” by the Press, there were at least three or four of “Con Cregan,” and while the former was dismissed with a few polite and measured phrases, the latter was largely praised and freely quoted. Nor was this all. The critics discovered in “Con Cregan” a freshness and a vigor which were so sadly deficient in “The Daltons.” It was, they averred, the work of a less practised writer, but of one whose humor was more subtle, and whose portraits, roughly sketched as they were, indicated a far higher power than the well-known author of “Harry Lorrequer.”
The unknown—for there was no attempt to guess him—was pronounced not to be an imitator of Mr. Lever, though there were certain small points of resemblance; for he was clearly original in his conception of character, in his conduct of his story, and in his dialogues, and there were traits of knowledge of life in scenes and under conditions to which Mr. Lever could lay no claim. One critic, who had found out more features of resemblance between the two writers than his colleagues, uttered a friendly caution to Mr. Lever to look to his laurels, for there was a rival in the field possessing many of the characteristics by which he first won public favor, but a racy drollery in description and a quaintness in his humor all his own. It was the amusement of one of my children at the time to collect these sage comments and torment me with their judgments, and I remember a droll little note-book, in which they were pasted, and read aloud from time to time with no small amusement and laughter.
One or two of these I have even now before me:—
“Our new novelist has great stuff in him.”—Bath Gazette.
“'Con Cregan'—author unknown—begins promisingly; his first number is a decided hit.”—Cambridge Chronicle.