And Trixie burst impetuously out of the room to fetch the book in which she had pasted the reviews, leaving the others in a rather crestfallen condition, Uncle Solomon especially looking straight in front of him with a fish-like stare, being engaged in trying to assimilate the very novel ideas of a literary career which had just been put before him.
Mrs. Ashburn muttered something about Trixie being always headstrong and never given to serious things, but even she was a little shaken by the unexpected testimony of her favourite oracle, the 'Horeb.'
'Look here, Uncle,' said Trixie, returning with the book and laying it down open before him. 'See what the —— says, and the ——; oh, and all of them!'
'I don't want to see 'em,' he said, sulkily pushing the book from him. 'Take the things away, child; who cares what they say? They're all at the same scribbling business themselves; o' course they'd crack up one another.'
But he listened with a dull, glazed look in his eyes, and a grunt now and then, while she read extracts aloud, until by-and-by, in spite of his efforts to repress it, a kind of hard grin of satisfaction began to widen his mouth.
'Where's this precious book to be got?' he said at last.
'Are you so sure he's disgraced you, now, Uncle?' demanded Trixie triumphantly.
'Men's praise is of little value,' said Mrs. Ashburn, harshly. 'Your uncle and we look at what Mark has done from the Christian's standpoint.'
'Well, look here, y' know. Suppose we go into the matter now; let's talk it out a bit,' said Uncle Solomon, coming out of a second brown study. 'What 'ave you got against Mark?'
'What have I got against him, Solomon?' echoed his sister in supreme amazement.