“I beg--your par--don, sir!” holding the book on a level with her eye, she had nearly run over “two poets instead of one.” “Nay, madam,” said Triplet, admiring, though sad, wretched, but polite, “pray continue. Happy the hearer, and still happier the author of verses so spoken. Ah!” “Yes,” replied the lady, “if you could persuade authors what we do for them, when we coax good music to grow on barren words. Are you an author, sir?” added she, slyly. “In a small way, madam. I have here three trifles--tragedies.” Mrs. Woffington looked askant at them, like a shy mare. “Ah, madam!” said Triplet, in one of his insane fits, “if I might but submit them to such a judgment as yours?” He laid his hand on them. It was as when a strange dog sees us go to take up a stone. The actress recoiled. “I am no judge of such things,” cried she, hastily. Triplet bit his lip. He could have killed her. It was provoking, people would rather be hanged than read a manuscript. Yet what hopeless trash they will read in crowds, which was manuscript a day ago. _Les imbeciles!_ “No more is the manager of this theater a judge of such things,” cried the outraged quill-driver, bitterly. “What! has he accepted them?” said needle-tongue. “No, madam, he has had them six months, and see, madam, he has returned them me without a word.” Triplet's lip trembled. “Patience, my good sir,” was the merry reply. “Tragic authors should possess that, for they teach it to their audiences. Managers, sir, are like Eastern monarchs, inaccessible but to slaves and sultanas. Do you know I called upon Mr. Rich fifteen times before I could see him?” “You, madam? Impossible!” “Oh, it was years ago, and he has paid a hundred pounds for each of those little visits. Well, now, let me see, fifteen times; you must write twelve more tragedies, and then he will read _one;_ and when he has read it, he will favor you with his judgment upon it; and when you have got that, you will have what all the world knows is not worth a farthing. He! he! he! 'And like the birds, gay Nature's happy commoners, Rifle the sweets'--mum--mum--mum.” Her high spirits made Triplet sadder. To think that one word from this laughing lady would secure his work a hearing, and that he dared not ask her. She was up in the world, he was down. She was great, he was nobody. He felt a sort of chill at this woman--all brains and no heart. He took his picture and his plays under his arms and crept sorrowfully away. The actress's eye fell on him as he went off like a fifth act. His Don Quixote face struck her. She had seen it before. “Sir,” said she. “Madam,” said Triplet, at the door. “We have met before. There, don't speak, I'll tell you who you are. Yours is a face that has been good to me, and I never forget them.” “Me, madam!” said Triplet, taken aback. “I trust I know what is due to you better than to be good to you, madam,” said he, in his confused way.