"Do you think we can do any thing with 'Walter Lorraine?' Shall we
take him to the publishers, or make an _auto-da-fe_ of him?"

"I don't see what is the good of incremation," Warrington said,
"though I have a great mind to put him into the fire, to punish your
atrocious humbug and hypocrisy. Shall I burn him indeed? You have much
too great a value for him to hurt a hair of his head."

[Illustration]

"Have I? Here goes," said Pen, and "Walter Lorraine" went off the
table, and was flung on to the coals. But the fire having done its
duty of boiling the young man's breakfast-kettle, had given up work
for the day, and had gone out, as Pen knew very well; and Warrington,
with a scornful smile, once more took up the manuscript with the tongs
from out of the harmless cinders.

"O, Pen, what a humbug you are!" Warrington said; "and, what is worst
of all, sir, a clumsy humbug. I saw you look to see that the fire was
out before you sent 'Walter Lorraine' behind the bars. No, we won't
burn him: we will carry him to the Egyptians, and sell him. We will
exchange him away for money, yea, for silver and gold, and for beef
and for liquors, and for tobacco and for raiment. This youth will
fetch some price in the market; for he is a comely lad, though not
over strong; but we will fatten him up, and give him the bath, and
curl his hair, and we will sell him for a hundred piastres to Bacon or
to Bungay. The rubbish is salable enough, sir; and my advice to you is
this: the next time you go home for a holiday, take 'Walter Lorraine'
in your carpet-bag--give him a more modern air, prune away, though