_Tristo._ “Right. It is some years since I read it. I have of late been absorbed in poetry, wild fiction, and idle thinkings. Friend Pulito, however, if you can waken him from his trance, will, doubtless, be glad to enter the list with you--lance in rest.” _Nescio._ “He must speak for himself. Come, Pulito, what think you of the proposal?” _Pulito._ (Musing.) “Why, I have hardly thought, yet, of _proposing_, though she’s a deucedly pretty girl--Phoebus! what a face, and what a dewy lip!” _Apple._ (Chuckling.) “You and she then might play a fine _dew-wet_ together.” _Pulito._ (Still gazing in his coffee-cup.) “True--she does sing well--and then, such glossy hair, and that eye of jet.” _Apple._ “From that eye, then, we might expect to see a fine _jet d’eau_.” [At this last discharge, Pulito was thoroughly awakened, while the others wished they had been asleep.] _Nescio._ “Now you’re awake, Pulito, you will, perhaps, answer my challenge.” _Pulito._ “Your challenge, my dear fellow? I heard none. But, if it related, as Paley says, ‘either remotely or immediately’ to the drinking of coffee, I’m ready for you ‘when and where thou wilt, lad.’” _Tristo._ “Pulito is either strangely forgetful, or ridiculously perverse to-night. Let us enlighten the fellow. While your eyes were in ‘dim suffusion veiled,’ and you were _reverising_ upon ‘sweet seventeen,’ Nescio has offered Apple and myself, pitched battle over Sterne’s ‘Tristram Shandy.’ Apple refuses to fight, being like Knickerbocker’s fumigating warriors, more valorous with the pipe, than the sword, while I retire, inglorious, knowing nothing of this ‘bone of contention.’ Quod, who is determined to have ‘war of words,’ next offers you the challenge.” _Pulito._ “Your pardon, Quod, for my inattention, and thanks to you, Tristo, for your kind mediation. By the dark-eyed houries of Mahomet’s heaven--by the beauty congregated in the harem of the Sultan, (Pooh, interjected Dumpling,)--I never--what was I going to say?--Oh! I never felt better disposed in my life to do literary battle--for I have read the book through, within the last month, and, faith, I believe I introduced the subject myself. I’ll uphold the _old_ novelists against all gainsayers and Bulwerites.” _Nescio._ “I do defy thee, stripling. As I myself once said, (rather foolishly though,) ‘I wouldn’t give the peeling of an onion For all they wrote, from Fielding back to Bunyan.’ The _old_ novelists against Bulwer! Why, man, Bulwer is a genius--the _soul_ of Wit, Philosophy, and Poetry.” “Bulwer a poet,” said Tristo--“have you read the Siamese Twins?” “Bulwer a wit,” said Apple--“in all his novels, he has no more than ten puns to a volume, on the average.” “Bulwer a philosopher,” said Pulito--“Oh! shade of Locke!”