“We shall publish next week,”—he said, rubbing his hands complacently, and addressing me with all the deference due to my banking account—“And as you don’t mind what you spend, I’ll tell you just what I propose to do. I intend to write out a mystifying paragraph of about some seventy lines or so, describing the book in a vague sort of way as ‘likely to create a new era of thought’—or, ‘ere long everybody who is anybody will be compelled to read this [p 97] remarkable work,’—or ‘as something that must be welcome to all who would understand the drift of one of the most delicate and burning questions of the time.’ These are all stock phrases, used over and over again by the reviewers,—there’s no copyright in them. And the last one always ‘tells’ wonderfully, considering how old it is, and how often it has been made to do duty, because any allusion to a ‘delicate and burning question’ makes a number of people think the novel must be improper, and they send for it at once!”
He chuckled at his own perspicuity, and I sat silent, studying him with much inward amusement. This man on whose decision I had humbly and anxiously waited not so many weeks ago was now my paid tool,—ready to obey me to any possible extent for so much cash,—and I listened to him indulgently while he went on unravelling his schemes for the gratification of my vanity, and the pocketing of his extras.
“The book has been splendidly advertised
”—he went on; “It could not have been more lavishly done. Orders do not come in very fast yet—but they will,—they will. This paragraph of mine, which will take the shape of a ‘leaderette,’ I can get inserted in about eight hundred to a thousand newspapers here and in America. It will cost you,—say a hundred guineas—perhaps a trifle more. Do you mind that?”
“Not in the least!” I replied, still vastly amused.
He meditated a moment,—then drew his chair closer to mine and lowered his voice a little.
“You understand I suppose, that I shall only issue two hundred and fifty copies at first?”
This limited number seemed to me absurd, and I protested vehemently.
“Such an idea is ridiculous!” I said—“you cannot supply the trade with such a scanty edition.”
“Wait, my dear sir, wait,—you are too impatient. You do not give me time to explain. All these two hundred and fifty will be given away by me in the proper quarters on the [p 98] day of publication,—never mind how,—they must be given away—”