Here is, perhaps, an opportune moment to digress into the ethics of the profession of the "literary ghost," and but for the fact that the subject has been pretty well thrashed out before,--not only with respect to Dumas, but to others as well,--it might justifiably be included here at some length, but shall not be, however. The busy years from 1840-50 could indeed be "explained"--if one were sure of his facts; but beyond the circumstances, frequently availed of, it is admitted, of Dumas having made use of secretarial assistance in the productions which were ultimately to be fathered by himself, there is little but jealous and spiteful hearsay to lead one to suppose that he made any secret of the fact that he had some very considerable assistance in the production of the seven hundred volumes which, at a late period in his life, he claimed to have produced. The "_Maquet affaire_," of course, proclaims the whilom Augustus Mackeat as a _collaborateur_; still the ingenuity of Dumas shines forth through the warp and woof in an unmistakable manner, and he who would know more of the pros and cons is referred to the "_Maison Dumas et Cie_." Maquet was manifestly what we have come to know as a "hack," though the species is not so very new--nor so very rare. The great libraries are full of them the whole world over, and very useful, though irresponsible and ungrateful persons, many of them have proved to be. Maquet, at any rate, served some sort of a useful purpose, and he certainly was a confidant of the great romancer during these very years, but that his was the mind and hand that evolved or worked out the general plan and detail of the romances is well-nigh impossible to believe, when one has digested both sides of the question. An English critic of no inconsiderable knowledge has thrown in his lot recently with the claims of Maquet, and given the sole and entire production of "Les Trois Mousquetaires," "Monte Cristo," "La Dame de Monsoreau," and many other of Dumas' works of this period, to him, placing him, indeed, with Shakespeare, whose plays certain gullible persons believe to have been written by Bacon. The flaw in the theory is apparent when one realizes that the said Maquet was no myth--he was, in fact, a very real person, and a literary personage of a certain ability. It is strange, then, that if he were the producer of, say "Les Trois Mousquetaires," which was issued ostensibly as the work of Dumas, that he wrote nothing under his own name that was at all comparable therewith; and stranger still, that he was able to repeat this alleged success with "Monte Cristo," or the rest of the Mousquetaire series, and yet not be able to do the same sort of a feat when playing the game by himself. One instance would not prove this contention, but several are likely to not only give it additional strength, but to practically demonstrate the correct conclusion.