"Good Heavens! or, rather, Bad Heavens!" exclaimed a simple-minded visitor, to whom he read this statement, "why, 'Cosmical space' must be uncommonly like a proclaimed district in Ireland, or Trafalgar Square during a Socialist riot."
The Philosopher perceived that he was not in the presence of a sympathetic mind, and regretted having invited the visitor to lunch.
Chapter IV.
After lunch, Mr. Noman Luckier resumed his work. The simple-minded friend followed him into his study, seated himself in the most comfortable chair, lit a cigar, and produced from his pocket a handy-volume edition of Pickwick. Oddly enough he commenced reading the concluding portion of Chapter XXXVIII. of that immortal work, which records how an elderly gentleman of scientific attainments suddenly observed certain extraordinary and wonderful phenomena, which he immediately concluded "it had been reserved for him alone to discover, and which he should immortalise his name by chronicling for the benefit of posterity. Full of this idea, the scientific gentleman seized the pen" and began writing "sundry notes of these unparalleled appearances ... which were to form the data of a voluminous treatise of great research and deep learning, which should astonish all the atmospherical wiseacres that ever drew breath in any part of the civilised globe." Subsequently, after a sharp shock which "stunned him for a full quarter of an hour," produced by Sam Weller's fist, the scientific gentleman retired to his library, and there composed a masterly treatise which "delighted all the Scientific Associations beyond measure, and caused him to be considered a light of science ever afterwards."
The simple-minded friend, having finished his cigar, replaced Pickwick in his pocket, and, smiling gently, stole out of the study on tiptoe, leaving Mr. Noman Luckier profoundly absorbed in his "Preliminary Notes."
The boy, whose name was not Cosmos, is still at large,—and so is Cosmos, very much so.
A LITERARY FIND.
Dear Mr. Punch,
A very intelligent threadbare man, evidently something of a scholar, has just put me in possession of a manuscript of incalculable importance. It is a drama called Piccoviccius, evidently of the Elizabethan era, though brought into harmony with modern diction and orthography by a later hand. A careful perusal of this priceless survival makes it certain that Shakspeare was not only familiar with it, but that he drew very largely from it even to "cribbing" the names of many of the characters bodily. This is not so remarkable, considering the very slight right Shakspeare has, in the opinion of the best critics, to the authorship of his own plays, as the fact that Dickens also had studied Piccoviccius, and founded upon it his Pickwick Papers, with an effrontery almost worthy of the Swan of Avon himself. Here is a slightly-edited selection from the First Act, so your readers can judge for themselves.