red whiskers and a flexible mouth, absorbed in documents which he has
brought with him in a black bag.

[Illustration: "Your Visitor has his Note-book out."]

"I _have_ the pleasure of addressing Mr. MARK LANE, I think?" he says.
"Just so. Well, Mr. MARK LANE, I consider myself extremely fortunate
in finding you at home, I assure you, and a very charming place
you have here--abundant evidence of a refined and cultivated mind,
excellent selection of our best-known writers, everything, if I may
say so, elegant in the extreme--as was to be expected! Even from the
cursory glimpse I have had, I can see that your interior would lend
itself admirably to picturesque description--which brings me to the
object of my visit. I have called upon you, Mr. LANE, in the hope of
eliciting your sympathy and patronage for a work I am now compiling--a
work which will, I am confident, commend itself to a gentleman of your
wide culture and interest in literary matters." (_Here you will look
as judicial as you can, and harden your heart in advance against a
new Encyclopædia, or an illustrated edition of_ SHAKSPEARE's _works_.)
"The work I allude to, Mr. LANE, is entitled, _Notable Nonentities
of Norwood and its Neighbourhood." (Here you will nod gravely,
rather taken by the title._) "It will be published very shortly, by
subscription, Mr. LANE, in two handsome quarto volumes, got up in
the most sumptuous style. It is a work which has been long wanted,
and which, I venture to predict, will be very widely read. It is my
ambition to make it a complete biographical compendium of every living
celebrity of note residing at Norwood at the present date. It will
be embellished with copious illustrations, printed by an entirely
new process upon India and Japanese paper; everything--type, ink,
paper, binding, will be of the best procurable; the publishers being