E. D."

"Pooh! The select committee will decide what books are to be
published."

"Then where the deuce is the advantage to the authors? I would as lief
submit; my work to a publisher as I would to a select committee of
authors. At all events, the publisher is not my rival; and I suspect he
is the best judge, after all, of a book,--as an accoucheur ought to be
of a baby."

"Upon my word, nephew, you pay a bad compliment to your father's Great
Work, which the booksellers will have nothing to do with."

That was artfully said, and I was posed; when Mr. Caxton observed, with
an apologetic smile,--

"The fact is, my dear Pisistratus, that I want my book published without
diminishing the little fortune I keep for you some day. Uncle Jack
starts a society so to publish it. Health and long life to Uncle Jack's
society! One can't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Here my mother entered, rosy from a shopping expedition with Mrs.
Primmins; and in her joy at hearing that I could stay to dinner, all
else was forgotten. By a wonder, which I did not regret, Uncle Jack
really was engaged to dine out. He had other irons in the fire besides
the "Literary Times" and the "Confederate Authors' Society;" he was deep
in a scheme for making house-tops of felt (which, under other hands,
has, I believe, since succeeded); and he had found a rich man (I suppose
a hatter) who seemed well inclined to the project, and had actually