"Good night, Mr. Lovely, good night, sir. When I'm not so busy perhaps, another time, I'll be most happy to talk over your—ahem—literary projects."
Mr. Virgin held up the candle to light Mr. Lovely through the shop. The rays happened to fall on a pile of slim volumes reposing on the counter.
"What are those?" Charles asked.
"Ah, 'tis a great pity you can't write verse like that."
"Poems?" said Mr. Lovely in accents of incredulity.
"To be sure—poems, but such poems,—lampoons, squibs, and pasquinades. 'Tis a Satire on the characters of the Bath—very scandalous, they tell me, but oddscods, 'tas run through nine editions in as many weeks. Now, if your name was Lively, sir, instead of Lovely."
"Mr. Virgin!"
"No offence. What I mean is, if you could write something similar about the visitors to Curtain Wells."
"You'd publish it?"
"Well, perhaps that's going too far, but I would give it my very best attention."