“And I dar say some day you will have it agen him, sir,” said Larry.
“Sure of it, a'most,” said Goggins; “them litherary men is always in defficulties.”
“I wondher you'd be like them, then, and write at all,” said Larry.
“Oh, as for me, it's only by way of amusement; attached as I am to the legal profession, my time wouldn't permit; but I have been infected by the company I kept. The living images that creeps over a man sometimes is irresistible, and you have no pace till you get them out o' your head.”
“Oh, indeed, they are very throublesome,” says Larry, “and are the litherary gintlemen, sir, as you call them, mostly that way?”
“To be sure; it is that which makes a litherary man: his head is full—teems with creation, sir.”
“Dear, dear!” said Larry.
“And when once the itch of litherature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.”
“But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any other way you can.”
“To be sure,” said Goggins, “I have seen a litherary gentleman in a sponging-house do crack things on the wall with a bit of burnt stick, rather than be idle—they must execute.”