Rondel obeyed.
'Now, toss it over to me. You observe I still hold the pistol.'
Rondel once more obeyed. Then, still keeping him under cover of the ugly-looking tube, she backed towards the door.
'Good-bye,' she said. 'Be sure I shall look out for your next volume.'
Rondel, bewildered as one who had lived through a fairy-tale, sank into his chair. Did such ridiculous things happen? He turned to his cheque-book. Yes, there was the counterfoil, fresh as a new wound, from which indeed his bank account was profusely bleeding.
Then he turned to his laurels: but, behold, they were all withered.
So, after a while, he donned hat and coat, and went forth to seek a flatterer as a pick-me-up.
GOOD BISHOP VALENTINE
The reader will remember how Lamb imagines him as a rubicund priest of Hymen, and pictures him 'attended with thousands and ten thousands of little loves, and the air is