Pulito. “Your challenge, my dear fellow? I heard none. But, if it related, as Paley says, ‘either remotely or immediately’ to the drinking of coffee, I’m ready for you ‘when and where thou wilt, lad.’”
Tristo. “Pulito is either strangely forgetful, or ridiculously perverse to-night. Let us enlighten the fellow. While your eyes were in ‘dim suffusion veiled,’ and you were reverising upon ‘sweet seventeen,’ Nescio has offered Apple and myself, pitched battle over Sterne’s ‘Tristram Shandy.’ Apple refuses to fight, being like Knickerbocker’s fumigating warriors, more valorous with the pipe, than the sword, while I retire, inglorious, knowing nothing of this ‘bone of contention.’ Quod, who is determined to have ‘war of words,’ next offers you the challenge.”
Pulito. “Your pardon, Quod, for my inattention, and thanks to you, Tristo, for your kind mediation. By the dark-eyed houries of Mahomet’s heaven—by the beauty congregated in the harem of the Sultan, (Pooh, interjected Dumpling,)—I never—what was I going to say?—Oh! I never felt better disposed in my life to do literary battle—for I have read the book through, within the last month, and, faith, I believe I introduced the subject myself. I’ll uphold the old novelists against all gainsayers and Bulwerites.”
Nescio. “I do defy thee, stripling. As I myself once said, (rather foolishly though,)
‘I wouldn’t give the peeling of an onion
For all they wrote, from Fielding back to Bunyan.’
The old novelists against Bulwer! Why, man, Bulwer is a genius—the soul of Wit, Philosophy, and Poetry.”
“Bulwer a poet,” said Tristo—“have you read the Siamese Twins?” “Bulwer a wit,” said Apple—“in all his novels, he has no more than ten puns to a volume, on the average.” “Bulwer a philosopher,” said Pulito—“Oh! shade of Locke!”
What further open maledictions or sly hits, the ‘favorite of the periodical press’ and circulating libraries, might have received is uncertain.—Just then a shout of Fire, which rung through the reechoing halls of the building, roused our sympathies, and joining in the cry, we rushed from the room.
Ego.