"Pooh! The select committee will decide what books are to be published." "Then where the deuce is the advantage to the authors? I would as lief submit; my work to a publisher as I would to a select committee of authors. At all events, the publisher is not my rival; and I suspect he is the best judge, after all, of a book,--as an accoucheur ought to be of a baby." "Upon my word, nephew, you pay a bad compliment to your father's Great Work, which the booksellers will have nothing to do with." That was artfully said, and I was posed; when Mr. Caxton observed, with an apologetic smile,-- "The fact is, my dear Pisistratus, that I want my book published without diminishing the little fortune I keep for you some day. Uncle Jack starts a society so to publish it. Health and long life to Uncle Jack's society! One can't look a gift horse in the mouth." Here my mother entered, rosy from a shopping expedition with Mrs. Primmins; and in her joy at hearing that I could stay to dinner, all else was forgotten. By a wonder, which I did not regret, Uncle Jack really was engaged to dine out. He had other irons in the fire besides the "Literary Times" and the "Confederate Authors' Society;" he was deep in a scheme for making house-tops of felt (which, under other hands, has, I believe, since succeeded); and he had found a rich man (I suppose a hatter) who seemed well inclined to the project, and had actually asked him to dine and expound his views. CHAPTER III. Here we three are seated round the open window--after dinner--familiar as in the old happy time--and my mother is talking low, that she may not disturb my father, who seems in thought-- Cr-cr-crrr-cr-cr! I feel it--I have it. Where! What! Where! Knock it down; brush it off! For Heaven's sake, see to it! Crrrr-crrrrr-- there--here--in my hair--in my sleeve--in my ear--cr-cr.