Royalty, disposed of, still left its trail of events. The sausage began to “spit.” The sound was hardly out of its body, when poor Triplet writhed like a worm on a hook. “Spitter, spittest,” went the sausage. Triplet groaned, and at last his inarticulate murmurs became words: “That's right, pit now, that is so reasonable to condemn a poor fellow's play before you have heard it out.” Then, with a change of tone, “Tom,” muttered he, “they are losing their respect for specters; if they do, hunger will make a ghost of me.” Next he fancied the clown or somebody had got into his ghost's costume.
“Dear,” said the poor dreamer, “the clown makes a very pretty specter, with his ghastly white face, and his blood-boltered cheeks and nose. I never saw the fun of a clown before, no! no! no! it is not the clown, it is worse, much worse; oh, dear, ugh!” and Triplet rolled off the couch like Richard the Third. He sat a moment on the floor, with a finger in each eye; and then, finding he was neither daubing, ranting, nor deluging earth with “acts,” he accused himself of indolence, and sat down to write a small tale of blood and bombast; he took his seat at the deal table with some alacrity, for he had recently made a discovery.
How to write well, rien que cela.
“First, think in as homely a way as you can; next, shove your pen under the thought, and lift it by polysyllables to the true level of fiction,” (when done, find a publisher—if you can). “This,” said Triplet, “insures common sense to your ideas, which does pretty well for a basis,” said Triplet, apologetically, “and elegance to the dress they wear.” Triplet, then casting his eyes round in search of such actual circumstances as could be incorporated on this plan with fiction, began to work thus:
TRIPLET'S FACTS. TRIPLET'S FICTION.
A farthing dip is on the table. A solitary candle cast its pale
gleams around.
It wants snuffing. Its elongated wick betrayed an owner
steeped in oblivion.
He jumped up, and snuffed it. He rose languidly, and trimmed it with
his fingers. Burned his with an
instrument that he had by his fingers,
and swore a little. side for that
purpose, and muttered a silent
ejaculation
Before, however, the mole Triplet could undermine literature and level it with the dust, various interruptions and divisions broke in upon his design, and sic nos servavit Apollo. As he wrote the last sentence, a loud rap came to his door. A servant in livery brought him a note from Mr. Vane, dated Covent Garden. Triplet's eyes sparkled, he bustled, wormed himself into a less rusty coat, and started off to the Theater Royal, Covent Garden.
In those days, the artists of the pen and the brush ferreted patrons, instead of aiming to be indispensable to the public, the only patron worth a single gesture of the quill.
Mr. Vane had conversed with Triplet, that is, let Triplet talk to him in a coffee-house, and Triplet, the most sanguine of unfortunate men, had already built a series of expectations upon that interview, when this note arrived. Leaving him on his road from Lambeth to Covent Garden, we must introduce more important personages.
Mr. Vane was a wealthy gentleman from Shropshire, whom business had called to London four months ago, and now pleasure detained. Business still occupied the letters he sent now and then to his native county; but it had ceased to occupy the writer. He was a man of learning and taste, as times went; and his love of the Arts had taken him some time before our tale to the theaters, then the resort of all who pretended to taste; and it was thus he had become fascinated by Mrs. Woffington, a lady of great beauty, and a comedian high in favor with the town.
The first night he saw her was an epoch in the history of this gentleman's mind. He had learning and refinement, and he had not great practical experience, and such men are most open to impression from the stage. He saw a being, all grace and bright nature, move like a goddess among the stiff puppets of the scene; her glee and her pathos were equally catching, she held a golden key at which all the doors of the heart flew open. Her face, too, was as full of goodness as intelligence—it was like no other farce; the heart bounded to meet it.