Mr. M. A. Dodson, who had already shown his consummate breeding by waiting for his chief to speak first, as though he were a royalty incarnate, bowed slightly from his full height, which was hardly more than four feet ten inches, and said in a very carefully modulated voice, “I apologize, sir, for my intrusion, but I learn that your personal translation of the Odyssey is to be issued to the Trade on Monday next.” “That is in accord with existing arrangements, I believe,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, with a masterly implication that his well-cut diction dealt merely with human nature’s daily food. “Well now, sir,” said Mr. M. A. Dodson, whose mellifluous accent might have sounded a little ingratiating had it been used by a less able practitioner, “I am taking the freedom of asking _you_, sir, whether I might purchase my own private copy this evening. The fact is, sir,” Mr. M. A. Dodson added, in a burst of humble yet half-whimsical self-revelation, “I can hardly possess my soul in patience until Monday next. May I ask, sir, would it be _infra dignitatem_ if I were to obtain my own copy this evening? I am particularly anxious to have the opportunity of studying the entire achievement--I feel sure, sir, I am justified in applying beforehand that much-abused word--before the journals of professional criticism, which are very excellent in their way, which I needn’t tell _you_, sir, I read every week, have had the opportunity of swaying my private judgment.” Mr. Octavius Crumpett paused, with his solid silver paper-knife suspended in the air, to listen to this masterful piece of elocution on the part of Mr. M. A. Dodson. As the delicately enunciated phrases fell from those gently simpering lips, quite as they would have proceeded from those of the listener himself, an emotion of pleasure and gratitude percolated through the entire being of this good and benign gentleman. That portion of his being which was arrayed in a waistcoat of immaculate whiteness rose and fell in visible accord with the internal harmony. The traditions of the house of Crumpett and Hawker were never so secure as in the keeping of even one of the latest additions to its clerical staff. By some mysterious means the rarefied air of that establishment had wrought already upon one of the least considerable of its members. “Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, speaking with obvious emotion, “it will--ah, give me _immense_ pleasure if you will accept the first copy of my--ah, little book.”