There was a silence, during which Mr Grovelyn smiled angrily and re-arranged his door-mat. 'When,' proceeded the publisher, sweetly, 'will you enable me to do the same thing for you, Mr Grovelyn?'
The doctor, whose name was Dalley, laughed; the poet frowned.
'Sir,' said Grovelyn, 'my work does not appeal to this age, which is merely prolific in the generating of idiots; I trust myself and my productions to the justice of posterity.'
'Then you must appeal to posterity's publishers as well, mustn't he, Mr Granton?' suggested Doctor Dalley, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes, addressing the publisher, who, being the head of a wealthy and influential firm, was regarded by all the penniless scribblers in the 'Bohemian' with feelings divided betwixt awe and fear.
'He must, indeed!' said Granton. 'Personally, I prefer to speculate in Delicia Vaughan, now Lady Carlyon. Her new book is a masterpiece; I am proud to be the publisher of it. And upon my word, I think the public show capital taste in "rushing" for it.'
'Pooh, she can't write!' sneered Grovelyn. 'Did you ever know a woman who could?'
'I have heard of George Eliot,' hinted Dalley.
'An old hen, that imagined it could crow!' said the poet, with intense malignity. 'She'll be forgotten as though she never existed, in a little while; and as for that Vaughan woman, she's several grades lower still, and ought only to be employed for the London Journal!'
Granton looked at him, and bit his lips to hide a smile.
'It strikes me you'd rather like to stand in Lady Carlyon's shoes, all the same, Mr Grovelyn,' he said.