“Yes; and I may as well own it, for I shall be quite as near success as if I disguise it.” I then went to my little drawer and took out Akenside.
“Here,” I cried, “I intended to have had this fall in your way, by pure accident, on the evening you were called to the conjurer, and I have planned the same ingenious project every evening since, but it has never taken, and so now I produce it fairly!”
“That,” cried he, taking it, with a very pleased smile, “is the only way in all things!” He then began reading “The Pleasures of the Imagination,” and I took some work, for which I was much in haste, and my imagination was amply gratified. He only looked out for favourite passages, as he has the poem almost by heart, and he read them with a feeling and energy that showed his whole soul penetrated with their force and merit.
After the first hour, however, he grew uneasy’; he asked me when I expected the king and queen from their walk, and whether they were likely to come into my room?
“All,” I said, “was uncertain.”
“Can nobody,” he cried, “let you know when they are coming?”
“Nobody,” I answered, “would know till they were actually arrived.”
“But,” cried he, “can you not bid somebody watch?”
‘Twas rather an awkward commission, but I felt it would be an awkwardness still less pleasant to me to decline it, and therefore I called Columb, and desired he would let me know when the queen returned.
He was then easier, and laughed a little, while he explained himself, “Should they come in and find me reading here before I could put away my book, they would say we were two blue stockings!”