works of a light character. Splash & Dash, my old publishers, (noble
fellows), had no less than three Presidents on their shoulders, and
could not be expected to take up anything "light" for several
months. Brick, of the very respectable but somewhat slow firm of
Brick & Brother, a firm that had singular scruples about publishing
a work not thickly sprinkled with the author's knowledge of French,
had one candidate by the neck, and had made a large bet that he
could carry him into the "White House" with a rush, while the junior
partner was deeply immersed in the study of Greek. Puff, of the firm
of Puff & Bluff, a house that had recently moved into the city to
teach the art of blowing books into the market, was foaming over
with his two Presidential candidates, and thought the public could
not be got to read a book without at least one candidate in it. It
was not prudent to give the reading world more than a book of
travels or so, said Munch, of the house of Munch & Muddle, until the
candidates for the White House were got nicely out of the way.
Indeed, there were good reasons for being alarmed, seeing that the
publishing world had given up literature, and, following the example
set by the New York Corporation, taken itself very generally to the
trade of President-making. Wilkins, whose publications were so
highly respectable that they invariably remained on his shelves, and
had in more than one instance become so weighty that they had
dragged the house down, thought the pretty feet of some few of the
female characters in this volume a little too much exposed to suit
the delicate sensibilities of his fair readers. Applejack, than
whose taste none could be more exquisite, and who only wanted to
feel a manuscript to tell whether it would do to publish it, made it
a point, he said, not to publish novels with characters in them that
would drink to excess. As for the very fast firm of Blowers &
Windspin, celebrated for flooding the country with cheap books of a