Daisy's Necklace, and What Came of It

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

XI.

MORTIMER HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GREAT PUBLISHER, AND MR. FLINT MAKES A DISCOVERY.

H. H. Hardwill, Publisher—Criminal Literature—Alliterative Titles—Goldwood—Poor Authors—A Heaven for them in the Perspective—Flint's Discovery, and the Horns of his Dilemma.

Mortimer looked up and read the sign—"H. H. Hardwill, Publisher." His heart half-failed him, and he stood looking in the large, book-filled window, with that romance which was to startle the literary world folded quietly under his arm, like any common paper. What kind of a man is Mr. Hardwill? he thought. Is he a large man, with a heavy watch-chain, or a thin, sky-rockety piece of humanity, dressed in black, and tipped off with red hair? Was he a cold, cast-iron man, like Flint? or a simple, sorrowful one, like Snarle that was? But this last idea melted of itself. How could the famous publisher resemble the poor, unobtrusive Snarle? He, Mr. Hardwill, who received notes from the great Hiawatha, and hob-nobbed with Knickerbocker Irving; he, who owned a phial of yellow sand, which had been taken from a scorching desert with an unpronounceable name, and presented to him by the Oriental Bayard; he, who chatted with genial Mr. Sparrow-grass—God bless him!—(Sparrow-grass,) and joked with Orpheus Stoddard,—he like simple Snarle? Pooh!

"Is Mr. Hardwill in?" asked Mortimer. He came near adding, "the great publisher."

The clerk, to whom his eyes looked, said he believed he was, and went on calling off from a slip of paper:

"'Murdered Milkmaid,' two copies; 'Bloody Hatchet,' twelve copies; 'The Seducer's Victim,' thirty copies; 'The Young Mother,' five copies; 'The Deranged Daughter,' seven copies; 'Hifiluten and other poems,' one copy."

"Can I speak with him?" ventured Mortimer, as the clerk, who was calling off the criminal literature, paused for breath.

"'The Merry Maniacs,' ten copies—Yes, sir; but he's engaged. Wait awhile," continued the clerk, as Mortimer turned to go. "'The Wizard of Wehawkin,' six copies; 'The Phantom of Philadelphia,' twelve copies, etc., etc."