My great illustrated paper has now been going for nigh six months. All the little pen-and-ink gods of criticism agree that it is the most artistic, the most brilliant, the best produced thing in the market--all agree even more that it has shown up the tawdry vulgarity of Pompey Malahide’s literary debauches. But--it has cost ten thousand pun!!!!! Please note the hysterisks. It’s quite as bad as all that. Not a one of the artists has been paid--nor not a one of the literary gents. I was not born for nothing--nor the bankruptcy laws made to thwart commercial genius. I got them to go in on sharing terms for the first six months--the profit as well as the risk to be theirs instead of going into the pockets of sordid city men. See? I played the full brass band of self-interest to their conceit and greed--which, Samuel, I fear is at the bottom of much human nature, even outside Judea. Well, the trade is a-owing to the harmonious tune of eight thousand pun. And the trade has decided to stop the concern and divide what shilling in the poundage is owing thereto. I am the trade. See? The McCubbie syndicate. See? I don’t appear. See? So don’t you burst into tears for me. I lured the boys with dreams beyond avarice--I showed them Pomp Malahide and the girls driving by! They gave their genius whole--like the gentlemen they are. Well, we have failed to elevate journalism. It must lapse back into its old sordid channels. Meanwhile, I am about to put in a bailiff in the name of the McCubbie printing syndicate upon the carved oak chest in the hall of our superior friend, Bartholomew Doome--that lordly person, being always backed with money in some mysterious way, having confessed, pathetic fact, that he had absolutely no settled income beyond what he makes from year to year by the exercise of his talents. Not that I have anything against the youth--I rather like the Nobs; but them tapestries! real goblins, my boy! they are mine.... And the pictures! Bouchers are running into five figures at the sale-rooms; Samuel, they are mine. And as for the Watteau--what ho! _And_ the Adams and Chippendale and Louis furniture and the whole splendid treasure! You could almost kiss it, Samuel--well, I think that we are going to get our eight thousand back, God be praised. But it will be the Sabbath in seven minutes, so I must cease from honest labour--and I prepare to do so in a reverent spirit, for it is one of the brightest Friday afternoons I have spent since you and me played marbles in the Minories. God be merciful to you a sinner. Yours, in the plentitude of my powers, I. TANKERTON WOLLUP.”