"My dear Barry," said I, after greeting him cordially, "you shouldn't—"
"Shouldn't what?"
"Call Mrs. Muggins names."
"Sycorax? She deserved it. Women are Cleopatras until they are thirty, then they are old witches with broomstick propensities! Don't interrupt me. Don't speak to me."
I choked down a panegyric on Woman, for I knew that Barry was thinking of a cold, heartless piece of femininity that, years and years ago, forgot her troth to an honest man, and ran away with a moustache and twenty-four gilt buttons. I could never see why he regretted it, for Mrs. Captain Mary O'Donehugh never stopped growing till she could turn down a two hundred weight; and she looks anything but interesting, with her long file of little O'Donehughs—nascent captains and middies in the bud!
I knew that Barescythe was not in a mood to be critically just, yet, for the sake of turning his thoughts into different channels, I glanced significantly at the MS. under his arm.
"My Novel," I ventured.
"Like the man in the play," said Barescythe, "the world should ask somebody to write it down an ass!"
With which, he threw the manuscript on the table before me.
His remark was uttered with such an air of logic, that I nodded assent, for I never disagree with logicians.