“Nonsense about Lewis!” was the surly rejoinder. “What do you imagine he knows about dealing with publishers?—they’re ‘kittle cattle to shoe behint,’ as a Scotchman would say. I’ve had dealings enough with ’em to find out that, I can tell you. As for Lewis, if he were to walk into one of their dens with his head up in the air, they’d take him for Lord Octavo Shallowpate, come to negotiate for another new novel, written with a paste-pot and scissors, and when they found he had not a handle to his name with which to shove his rubbish down the public throat, they’d kick him out of the shop again.”
“Then you really think I look as stupid as a literary lord, eh, Frere?” inquired Lewis.
“Well, that’s too strong a term, perhaps,” answered Frere reflectively; “but you don’t look like a man of business, at all events.”
“Where does this sagacious publisher reside?” asked Lewis; and when Frere had given him the required information, he continued: “Then we’ll settle the matter thus:—My tailor, with whom I am anxious to gain an interview, lives in the adjoining street; accordingly, I’ll walk down with Rose and you, and while you negotiate with the autocrat of folios, I’ll take ‘fitting measures’ for getting myself ‘neatly bound in cloth.’”
“So be it then, most facetious youth,” returned Frere, laughing; “and the faster you can get ready, you know,” he continued, turning to Rose, “the better.”
“I’m all obedience,” replied Rose, smiling; “but I think you’re rather fond of tyrannising, Mr. Frere.”
“Who, I?” returned Frere in astonishment. “Not a bit of it; I’m the most easily managed fellow in London—I am, upon my word.”
“You should see what perfect command his old housekeeper has him in,” observed Lewis, with an arch glance at his sister; “the bear dares not growl at her—she’s a perfect Van Amburgh to him.”
Now there was so much truth in this charge that it was rather a sore subject with Frere. The old woman in question had lived with his mother and had nursed him when a child; and for these reasons, as well as from good nature and a certain easiness of disposition which lay beneath his rough manner, Frere had allowed her gradually to usurp control over him, till, in all the minutiae of his domestic life, she ruled him with a rod of iron. Although her admiration of and respect for her master’s learning was fully equal to her total ignorance of the arts and sciences; and although her affection for him was boundless, nature had gifted her with a crusty temper, which an interval of poverty and hardship (extending from the death of Frere’s mother till the time when his first act on obtaining a competence had been to seek her out and take her into his service) had not tended to sweeten. The dialogues which occasionally took place between the master and servant were most amusing, and her power over him was exercised so openly, that his fear of Jemima had become a standing joke among his intimates. Accordingly, on hearing Lewis’s observation, Frere hastily jumped up and strode to the fireplace, muttering, “Nonsense! psha! rubbish! don’t you believe a word of it, Miss Arundel; but go and dress, there’s a good——” he was going to add “fellow”; for be it known, the clue to his gruff, unpolished behaviour towards the young lady in question was to be discovered in the fact, that from her quiet composure, freedom from affectation, clear, good sense, and the interest she took in subjects usually considered too abstruse for female investigation, Frere looked upon her as a kindred soul, and as all his other chosen intimates were of the worthier gender, he was continually forgetting that she was not a man. Checking himself, however, just in time, he substituted “creature” for “fellow”; and as Rose left the room, he continued, “ ’Pon my word, Lewis, your sister’s such a nice, sensible, well-informed, reasonable being, that I am constantly forgetting she’s a woman.”
“Which speech shows that amongst your numerous studies that of the female character has been neglected,” replied Lewis; “or that you have taken your impressions from very bad specimens of the sex.”