"But does he not read the poems before he rejects them?"
"He tastes them. Do you eat a cheese before you buy it?"
"And what becomes of all these that he drops into the basket?"
"If they are not claimed by their author in proper season they go to the devil."
"What!" said Gifted, with his eyes stretched very round.
"To the paper factory, where they have a horrid machine they call the devil, that tears everything to bits,—as the critics treat our authors, sometimes,—sometimes, Mr. Hopkins."
Gifted devoted a moment to silent reflection.
After this instructive sight they returned together to the publisher's private room. The wine had now warmed the youthful poet's præcordia, so that he began to feel a renewed confidence in his genius and his fortunes.
"I should like to know what that critic of yours would say to my manuscript," he said boldly.
"You can try it, if you want to," the publisher replied, with an ominous dryness of manner which the sanguine youth did not perceive, or, perceiving, did not heed.