“Perhaps it may be good news instead of bad!” remarked Bracy encouragingly. The blighted one shook his head.
“Not for me” he murmured; then turning to Susanna, he continued, “Excuse my interrupting our conversation, but this gentleman has some intelligence to impart—or I may say, to break to me.”
Mrs. Brahmin smiled sweetly such a sympathetic smile that it went straight through a black satin waistcoat, with a cypress wreath embroidered on it in sad-coloured silk, and reached the “crushed and withered” heart of J. D. D. .
“You know,” continued Bracy, “I was obliged, most unwillingly, to decline that touching little thing of yours. The—what is it? the Cough of Genius?”
“The Curse,” suggested its author gloomily.
“Ah! yes. I read it cough—you don’t write very clearly—yes, * the Cursing Genius.’ You know, my dear Dace, we editors are placed in a very trying position. A great responsibility devolves upon us; we are scarcely free agents. Now your article affected me deeply” (this was strictly true, for he had laughed over the most tragic touches till the tears ran down his cheeks), “but I was forced to decline it. I could not have put it in if my own brother had written it. You will naturally ask, Why? Because it did not suit the tone of Blunt’s Magazine!” And as Bracy pronounced these awful and mysterious words he shook his head and looked unutterable things; while the “child of a postponed destiny,” seeing the shadow of a still further postponement clouding his dark horizon, shook his head likewise, and relieved his elaborately-worked shirt-front of a sigh.
“But,” resumed Bracy, “thinking the paper much too original to be lost, I took the liberty of handing it over to Bullbait, the Editor of the Olla Podrida. Well, sir, I saw him this morning, and he said——”
“What?” exclaimed the fated one eagerly, a hectic tinge colouring his sallow cheek.
“Don’t excite yourself, my dear Dace,” rejoined Bracy anxiously; “you’re looking pale: too much brain work, I’m afraid. You must take care of yourself; so many of our greatest geniuses have died young. But I see you’re impatient. Bullbait said—he’s a very close, cautious character, never likes to commit himself, but he actually said, he’d think about it!”
“Was that all?” groaned the disappointed Dace, relapsing into despondency.