B. The first point to be considered is the tempus, or time; the next the locus, or place; and lastly the dramatis personae and thus, chapter upon chapter, will you build a novel.
A. Build!
B. Yes, build; you have had your dimensions given, the interior is left to your own decoration. First, as to the opening. Suppose we introduce the hero in his dressing-room. We have something of the kind in Pelham; and if we can’t copy his merits, we must his peculiarities. Besides, it always is effective: a dressing-room or boudoir of supposed great people, is admitting the vulgar into the arcana, which they delight in.
A. Nothing can be better.
B. Then, as to time; as the hero is still in bed, suppose we say four o’clock in the afternoon?
A. In the morning, you mean.
B. No; the afternoon. I grant you that fashionable young men in real life get up much about the same time as other people; but in a fashionable novel your real exclusive never rises early. The very idea makes the tradesman’s wife lift up her eyes. So begin. “It was about thirty-three minutes after four, post meridian—.”
A. Minute—to a minute!
B. “That the Honourable Augustus Bouverie’s finely chiselled—”
A. Chiselled!