“Exactly,” replied Hyacinth, running his white fingers through his curls; “‘Floy’ is my sister.”
“Why the deuce didn’t you tell a fellow before? I have wasted more pens, ink, and breath, trying to find her out, than I can stop to tell you about now, and here you have kept as mum as a mouse all the time. What did you do it for?”
“Oh, well,” said Hyacinth, coloring a little, “‘Floy’ had an odd fancy for being incog., and I, being in her confidence, you know, was on honor to keep her secret.”
“But she still wishes it kept,” said Lewis; “so her publishers, whom I have vainly pumped, tell me. So, as far as that goes, I don’t see why you could not have told me before just as well as now.”
Hyacinth very suddenly became aware of “an odd craft in the river,” and was apparently intensely absorbed looking at it through his spy-glass.
“Hyacinth! I say, Hyacinth!” said the pertinacious Lewis, “I believe, after all, you are humbugging me. How can she be your sister? Here’s a paragraph in —— Sentinel, saying—” and Lewis drew the paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and put on his glasses with distressing deliberation: “‘We understand that “Floy,” the new literary star, was in very destitute circumstances when she first solicited the patronage of the public; often wandering from one editorial office to another in search of employment, while wanting the commonest necessaries of life.’ There, now, how can that be if she is ‘your sister’? and you an editor, too, always patronizing some new contributor with a flourish of trumpets? Pooh, man! you are hoaxing;” and Lewis jogged him again by the elbow.
“Beg your pardon, my dear boy,” said Hyacinth, blandly, “but ’pon my honor, I haven’t heard a word you were saying, I was so intent upon making out that craft down the river. I’m a little afraid of that fog coming up, Lewis; suppose we join Mrs. Ellet in the drawing-room.”
“Odd—very odd,” soliloquized Lewis. “I’ll try him again.—
“Did you read the panegyric on ‘Floy’ in ‘The Inquisitor’ of this morning?” said Lewis. “That paper, you know, is decidedly the highest literary authority in the country. It pronounces ‘Floy’s’ book to be an ‘unquestionable work of genius.’”
“Yes,” replied Hyacinth, “I saw it. It is a great thing, Lewis, for a young writer to be literarily connected;” and Hyacinth pulled up his shirt-collar.