"Is it possible that you have not seen last week's number of the paper?" Mr. Paul asked. "And you a literary man!" He forthwith produced the last week's number, and opened it at the right place. "Read that, sir," he said, with something in his manner which looked like virtuous indignation.
Mr. Vimpany found himself confronted by a letter addressed to the editor. It was signed by an eminent physician, whose portrait had appeared in the first serial part of the new work—accompanied by a brief memoir of his life, which purported to be written by himself. Not one line of the autobiography (this celebrated person declared) had proceeded from his pen. Mr. Vimpany had impudently published an imaginary memoir, full of false reports and scandalous inventions—and this after he had been referred to a trustworthy source for the necessary particulars. Stating these facts, the indignant physician cautioned readers to beware of purchasing a work which, so far as he was concerned, was nothing less than a fraud on the public.
"If you can answer that letter, sir," Mr. Paul Boldside resumed, "the better it will be, I can tell you, for the sale of your publication."
Mr. Vimpany made a reckless reply: "I want to know how the thing sells. Never mind the letter."
"Never mind the letter?" the junior partner repeated. "A positive charge of fraud is advanced by a man at the head of his profession against a work which we have published—and you say, Never mind the letter."
The rough customer of the Boldsides struck his fist on the table. "Bother the letter! I insist on knowing what the sale is."
Still preserving his dignity, Mr. Paul (like Mr. Peter) rang for the clerk, and briefly gave an order. "Mr. Vimpany's account," he said—and proceeded to admonish Mr. Vimpany himself.
"You appear, sir, to have no defence of your conduct to offer. Our firm has a reputation to preserve. When I have consulted with my brother, we shall be under the disagreeable necessity—"
Here (as he afterwards told his brother) the publisher was brutally interrupted by the author:
"If you will have it," said this rude man, "here it is in two words. The doctor's portrait is the likeness of an ass. As he couldn't do it himself, I wanted materials for writing his life. He referred me to the year of his birth, the year of his marriage, the year of this, that, and the other. Who cares about dates? The public likes to be tickled by personal statements. Very well—I tickled the public. There you have it in a nutshell."