He then chatted pleasantly a moment, with the party, and passed on, giving an ominous gape, as he drew nearer to the oi polloi of literature. A moment after appeared Mr. Gray, a man who needed nothing but taste in the public, and the encouragement that would follow such a taste, to stand at, or certainty near, the head of the poets of our own time. He, too, looked shily at the galaxy, and took refuge in a corner. Mr. Pith followed; a man whose caustic wit needs only a sphere for its exercise, manners to portray, and a society with strong points about it to illustrate, in order to enrol his name high on the catalogue of satirists. Another ring announced Mr. Fun, a writer of exquisite humour, and of finished periods, but who, having perpetrated a little too much sentiment, was instantly seized upon by all the ultra ladies who were addicted to the same taste in that way, in the room.
These persons came late, like those who had already been too often dosed in the same way, to be impatient of repetitions. The three first soon got together in a corner, and Eve fancied they were laughing at the rest of the company; whereas, in fact, they were merely laughing at a bad joke of their own; their quick perception of the ludicrous having pointed out a hundred odd combinations and absurdities, that would have escaped duller minds.
"Who, in the name of the twelve Caesars, has Mrs. Legend got to lionize, yonder, with the white summit and the dark base?' asked the writer of odes.
"Some English pamphleteer, by what I can learn," answered he of satire; "some fellow who has achieved a pert review, or written a Minerva Pressism, and who now flourishes like a bay tree among us. A modern Horace, or a Juvenal on his travels."
"Fun is well badgered," observed Mr. Gray.--"Do you not see that Miss Annual, Miss Monthly, and that young alphabet D.O.V.E., have got him within the circle of their petticoats, where he will be martyred on a sigh?"
"He casts tanging looks this way; he wishes you to go to his rescue, Pith."
"I!--Let him take his fill of sentiment! I am no homoepathist in such matters. Large doses in quick succession will soonest work a cure. Here comes the lion and he breaks loose from his cage, like a beast that has been poked up with sticks."
"Good evening, gentlemen," said Captain Truck, wiping his face intensely, and who having made his escape from a throng of admirers, took refuge in the first port that offered. "You seem to be enjoying yourselves here in a rational and agreeable way. Quite cool and refreshing in this corner."
"And yet we have no doubt that both our reason and our amusement will receive a large increase from the addition of your society, sir," returned Mr. Pith.--"Do us the favour to take a seat, I beg of you, and rest yourself."
"With all my heart, gentlemen; for, to own the truth, these ladies make warm work about a stranger. I have just got out of what I call a category."