I think it will. Mercury is duly set forth in a
gorgeous equipage, driving four horses around the world at a furious
pace; and the artist, by special instructions, had docked their tails.
From New York, Mrs. Crocker and I went abroad. And it so chanced, in
December, that we were staying a few days at a country-place in Sussex,
and the subject of The Sybarites was broached at a dinner-party. The
book was then having its sale in England.
"Crocker," said our host, "do you happen to have met the author of that
book? He's an American."
I looked across the table at my wife, and we both laughed.
"I happen to know him intimately," I replied.
"Do you, now?" said the Englishman; "what a very entertaining chap he is,
is he not? I had him down in October, and, by Jove, we were laughing the
blessed time. He was telling us how he wrote his novels, and he said,
'pon my soul he did, that he had a secretary or something of that sort to
whom he told the plot, and the secretary elaborated, you know, and wrote
the draft. And he said, 'pon my honor, that sometimes the clark wrote
the plot and all,--the whole blessed thing,--and that he never saw the
book except to sign his name to it."
"You say he was here in October?" asked Marian, when the laugh had
subsided.
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