Mortimer had thrown aside his timidity. He gave a concise sketch of the plot, touching here and there on some supposed-to-be felicitous incident, and grew so autorially eloquent over his romance, that the careful Mr. Hardwill requested Mortimer to leave his manuscript with him, saying: "I cannot give you much hope. I have more books ready for press than I can well attend to. If you will call on me the latter part of next week, you shall have my decision." With these words, spoken in an off-hand, business-like way, Mr. Hardwill made a bow, which said, as kindly as such a thing _can_ be said, "You needn't stay any longer." Mortimer returned his bland smile frankly, and retired, though he would fain have called Mr. Hardwill's attention to that delightful and exciting scene in which Mr. Adine St. Clair meets Arabella Clementina after an estrangement of two weeks! but he didn't. He again threaded his way through the labyrinth of literature, and the last sound which fell on his ear, as he turned from the book-store into the street, was, "'The Ruined Cigar Girl,' twenty copies!" "What on earth could anybody want of a 'Ruined Cigar Girl,' or a 'Young Mother?'" and Mortimer laughed outright. The wand of Prospero is neither more cunning nor more powerful than the pen of a well bred author. It creates something out of nothing, (more frequently nothing out of something), changes time, place, and human nature; it lifts up the blue roofing of ocean, and gives you a glimpse of fish-life; and deeper still, shows you the coral forests of the Naiads, and their aquatic palaces. It draws back the curtain of cloud-land, and feeds your fancy with forms that never have been, and never will be; summons spirits from the air, and gives melodious voices to all vernal things. Pleasant magician that waves this wand! what curious people are walking in the chambers of your brain! What dreams are yours, and what cruel cuts this real world sometimes gives you! You have no right to be here, poor devil! You are somewhat misplanted; you belong to some sphere between earth and heaven, and not very near either. That such a place is provided for you I am certain. There it is that all your books will run through countless editions; there it is you can afford to hire some one to write your autograph for besieging admirers, and feed, as you should, "On the roses, and lay in the lilies of life." But I was speaking of pen-magic. It is not my present mood to do anything fantastical in that way. I only wish to give you a sight of Mr. Flint, as he appeared one afternoon some months after Mortimer had left his office. He was standing in that inner-room of his counting-house to which I have introduced the reader. I change my mind--he was not standing. He had just thrown himself into a chair, in which he did not seem at all easy. I take peculiar delight in placing Mr. Flint in uncomfortable positions.