“I wouldn’t mind giving you long odds against that immaculate nephew of yours ever writing a book that will sell,” replied the incredulous Tom, in no wise put out of countenance by his friend’s exordium. “They all begin in the same style, these young uns. Epic poem about King Arthur, or King Alfred, or King Athelstane, that is to be the Iliad of future generations,--high-falutin sentiment, pure aspirations, and so on. And they write their epic poems, and pass them on from one publisher’s office to another, till the poor valueless manuscripts are limp and dirty; and then they learn to adapt themselves to the requirements of their generation, and turn into ‘clever hands’ like you and me, Dan. They must all go through the same apprenticeship, and ‘learn in suffering what they teach in song,’--that is to say, learn in Whitecross Street what they teach in the monthly magazines, unless they happen to be careful souls, with snug little incomes: in which case they hug their sweet delusions to the last, and publish their epics at their own expense. Epic poems, forsooth! Do you think the Greeks would have read Homer if they had possessed periodical literature?” “I look upon periodical literature as the sworn foe to learning.” “You are not the first of dirty birds, Daniel Mayfield,” cried his friend, sternly; “and now for the divine Louisa.” The “divine Louisa” was Mr. Granger’s playful name for unlimited loo, a pastime which cost Daniel Mayfield many a five-pound note in the course of the year, but which he had not the moral courage to forswear. He had his reputation as a Bohemian, and he was too old to hope for a new reputation amongst the ranks of the respectable; so he was fain to be true to the brotherhood in which he had some _status_. “Better to be a prince among the nomad tribes than a nobody among the Philistines,” he said to himself. “One might submit to that, if the Philistines were a perfect race; but when a man sees how much malice and selfishness there may be in the Pharisees and Sadducees, he is apt to prefer the society of publicans and sinners.” These were the arguments with which Daniel Mayfield was wont to stifle the upbraidings of conscience; for the sinner can forgive himself all his other sins more easily than the one sin of a wasted life. Mr. Mayfield had his hours of depression, his moments of savage bitterness; and to escape from these, he fled to the scenes he liked and the friends he loved--the friends who in some sort loved him. CHAPTER XII. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER.