"Hang it Lumley, what a rumpus you keep up among the books! You
well nigh drove that old volume into my head by a process more
summary than usual."

The learned tutor made a thousand apologies, as he descended the
ladder, but on touching the floor his delight burst forth.

"It was this paper, my lord, which made me so awkward--I have
lighted on a document of the greatest interest!"

"What is it?" asked the pupil looking askance at letter, and tutor.

"An original letter which comes to hand, just in time for my lives of
the tragedians--the volume to be dedicated to your lordship--it is a
letter of poor Otway."

{Otway = Thomas Otway (1652-1685), English playwright who wrote
a number of important tragedies in verse, but who died destitute at
the age of 33. The Coopers were familiar with his work; James
Fenimore Cooper used quotations from Otway's "The Orphan" for
three chapter heading epigraphs in his 1850 novel, "The Ways of the
Hour"}

"Otway?--What, the fellow you were boring me about last night?"

"The same my lord--the poet Otway--you may remember we saw his
Venice Preserved last week. It is a highly interesting letter, written
in great distress, and confirms the story of his starvation. You see
the signature."