In spite, however, of the total failure of this source, to which he looked chiefly for sustenance and inspiration in his arduous undertaking, Mr. Dodson was of far too considerable a mental and moral calibre to relinquish his self-imposed task. Thus early in his career he had adopted the saying of a compatriot, for he too, like so many of our national heroes, claimed the blood of Caledonia stern and wild, upon his mother’s side, “genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” and had made it his own. Therefore in a crisis where one of other clay would have been daunted indeed, Mr. M. A. Dodson girt his loins like a veritable giant, and re-addressed himself to his labours with the greatest possible valour. Luney had failed him, as it was only reasonable to expect such a lunatic to do. It was a Napoleonic visage that crossed the threshold of a monumental building in Bloomsbury Square, immediately opposite the Hotel Thackeray, on three consecutive evenings at the hour of seven-thirty, and stayed there with its nose pinned to unaccustomed documents until it was turned out. Upon the afternoon of that Monday which was made memorable in the national life by the fact that upon that day, Mr. Octavius Crumpett’s version of Homer was issued to the Trade, towards five o’clock on that epoch-making afternoon, the calm and self-contained right hand of Mr. M. A. Dodson smote the portal of the sanctum sanctorum of Mr. Octavius Crumpett, while in his equally calm and self-contained left hand he bore the sacred volume upon which he had been concentrating the whole of his critical faculty, which was not inconsiderable, for three days past. “Ah, Mr. Dodson, good-morning,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, with a benign beam in his mild eyes, as he looked up from the perusal of the list of books received by his favourite _Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama_. It is to be observed _inter alia_ that the seeming inconsistency of which this great and good man was guilty of ascribing the name of morning to five o’clock in the afternoon, was in strict accordance with the higher usage. “Good-morning, sir,” said Mr. M. Arnold Dodson, with a slightly austere but perfectly amiable self-possession. “Is it to be my privilege, Mr. Dodson, to hear the first verdict which has been passed upon--ah, my little book?” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, with the expansive pleasantness of one who had received already that morning, at his favourite hall of physical and mental refreshment, the sonorously-tendered compliment of a stalwart of the Episcopal Bench, upon its long-expected-and-eagerly-looked-for appearance.