University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
DR. GILBERT AMONG THE NEW YORK PUBLISHERS.

It seemed an age to Dr. Gilbert and his daughter
before the responses from the New York publishers
reached the Crampton post-office. When, at last, both
letters were delivered at the wicket, the doctor confessed
to himself a greater degree of excitement than he
had felt for many a day. As he walked home with them
in his pocket, he busied himself with framing an apology
to Kapp & Demigh for giving the book to the Kilgores,
for he could hardly doubt that both had accepted his
proposition. “I've got something for you, Fanny,”
said he, as he entered the house. Fanny followed him
into his office, and took a seat. Then the doctor broke
the seal of one of the letters, unfolded it, and read:

“Impertinent cub!” exclaimed the doctor, as he
finished this brief and business-like production, his face
swollen with sudden wrath. “You may depend upon
it, Fanny,” said he, without venturing to look in her
face, “that not one of the Kilgores has ever seen my
letter—not one—no, not one. This understrapper,
Haddock, or Hemlock, or Ruddock, or whatever his
name is, has not only replied on his own responsibility,
but has had the impudence to stick his catalogue in my
face.”

While the doctor was excitedly delivering himself
of these words, his daughter sat perfectly silent, with
cheeks as pale as ashes, and a heart that thumped so
violently against its walls, that her whole frame was
shocked by it. He sat for a minute, and looked at the
letter of Kapp & Demigh, hardly daring to take it up.
At length he opened it, and read it silently. Fanny
watched him, and assured herself that its contents were
no more favorable than those of its predecessor.

“We are disappointed here again, Fanny,” said the
doctor with a mollified tone, “but these fellows are
gentlemen, and attend to their own business. Will you
hear it?”

Fanny said, “Of course,” and her father read:

Father and daughter sat for some time in reflective
disappointment, but neither was discouraged. It was
not the habit of Dr. Gilbert to undertake an enterprise
and fail of carrying it through; but he comprehended
the fact, at once, that he could do nothing by mail. The
process was too slow and indirect. He must attend to
the matter personally. He must go to New York.

Fanny had great respect for her father's personal
power and efficiency, and received the announcement
with evident satisfaction. The preliminary arrangements
for the journey were entered upon by both with
much spirit. Fanny, with unusual readiness, took upon
herself the preparation of her father's wardrobe, while
he and the little black pony busily attended to such affairs
as were necessary to be looked after out of doors.
It was quite an event in the history of Crampton—this
departure of everybody's family physician, and his indefinite
period of absence. The postmaster had duly
reported to the villagers the arrival of the two important-looking
letters, and they had found it very difficult
to decide whether he had been summoned to some great
case in consultation, or whether he had been invited to
a chair in one of the medical colleges. As father and

daughter kept their own counsels on the subject, the
question was open for discussion during his entire absence.
All agreed that Dr. Gilbert was a man who
knew what he was about, and had a distinct comprehension
of the side upon which his bread was buttered.

The day set for his departure came at length, and
the little Crampton mail-coach started out from the little
Crampton tavern for the doctor's door, and the little
driver blew his little horn to inform the doctor that it
was time for him and his baggage to be ready. The
coach came up to the gate with a pretentious crack of
the whip, and a rate of speed which the reputation of
the establishment upon the road did not at all warrant.
In fact, the doctor found that the fiery little pair of
horses that made the coach rattle so merrily about
Crampton, underwent a serious change of character immediately
after leaving the village.

The Crampton line of public travel and mail carriage
was only one of the many tributaries to the great
trunk lines that traversed the Connecticut valley from
the northernmost point to the commencement of steam
navigation at Hartford; and it was not until late in
the afternoon that the Crampton basket was emptied
into the trunk-line bin that came along behind six smoking
horses, covered with passengers, and piled with baggage.
The doctor was obliged to take an outside seat.
It was an unwelcome shock to the gentleman's dignity,
and as he was a heavy man, the seat was reached by an
outlay of physical exertion that cost some temper and
more breath. His state of mind was not improved by
the stimulus supplied to his efforts by an irreverent

young man in sea costume, who reached down his hand,
and shouted, “Now, old feller! Yo-heave, O!”

The stage-coach started off with a fresh team at a
smashing speed, and the doctor felt that he was getting
into the whirl of the great world. There was something
in the thought that exhilarated him. Floating along in
one of the arteries of business life, it seemed to Dr. Gilbert,
as a business man, a very splendid thing; but his
satisfaction was marred by the fact that the broader the
stream of life grew along which, and into which, he was
gliding, the smaller grew Dr. Gilbert. Out of Crampton,
the great man of Crampton was of no more account than
anybody.

At the next grand station of the route, the passengers
had accumulated in such numbers that another
coach was put on, and the doctor was favored with an
inside seat. He left Greenfield at nightfall, the coach
plunging down the hill upon which the town stands at
what he thought to be a dangerous rate of speed, rattling
over Deerfield River bridge, and sweeping along the
skirts of the Deerfield meadows. It was a glorious
evening, and the fresh phase of life which it presented
to our Crampton passenger would have been refreshing
beyond expression, if the burden of care which he had
taken on could have been lifted. As he realized, more
and more, the great and clashing interests of the world,
the little bundle of manuscript in his trunk seemed to
lose its importance. What would this great world care
for a country physician? What, particularly, would it
care for the productions of a country physician's daughter?

At Bloody Brook, the passengers took a late supper,

connected with which the only thing that Dr. Gilbert
remembered was a picture in the dining-room, of the
celebrated massacre from which the village had derived
its name. Some very stiff-looking people, whom he had
read of as “The Flower of Essex,” were represented as
picking grapes upon very high trees, and receiving
deadly arrows from very low Indians, who seemed to
have grown among the bushes. He entered Northampton
and a dream about the same time, and left both
without any distinct notions of their respective characteristics.
Half-sleeping, half-waking, and uniformly uneasy
and uncomfortable, he passed the night, and the
towns through which his course lay, and came in sight
of the spires of Hartford just as a brilliant sun was
rising into a cloudless sky.

Here the stream of life was swelling again, and
again Dr. Gilbert's proportions, as a man of mark and
importance, consciously shrank. The coach rolled in
upon the paved streets, and even at that early hour
found many astir. Hackney-coaches were actively
pushing about, collecting passengers for the New York
boat. Loads of stores and light freight were pressing
to the river bank, where lay the splendid steamer Bunker
Hill. The coach which bore him and his fellow-passengers
was only one of a dozen that came in and
deposited their passengers and luggage. Everybody
was in a hurry. A score of stevedores and deck hands
were trundling boxes and barrels on board. Black
porters were dodging here and there, collecting baggage,
of which they proposed to take the charge for a consideration.
The bell of the Bunker Hill introduced its
tongue among the Babel voices of the hour. The hurry

every moment increased. Men came running down
the street with umbrellas and satchels under their
arms, and rushed on board as if life depended on their
crossing the plank ten minutes before the steamer
swung off.

Of much of this active life the doctor was a quiet
observer from the upper deck of the Bunker Hill. The
great man of Crampton had at this time come to be exceedingly
insignificant. He saw elderly, portly, dignified
gentlemen come on board, attended by ladies of
stylish appointments and a demonstrative air of high
breeding, all smacking of a loftier grade of life than he
had been accustomed to. He could not help acknowledging
to himself that Dr. Theophilus Gilbert of Crampton,
accompanied by his accomplished daughter, the
authoress of “Tristram Trevanion,” would make, anywhere,
a less impressive figure. Then the question
again occurred to him—“What does all this world of
life, full of high enterprises, grand pursuits, headlong
business, and unresting competitions, care for the offspring
of a country girl's brain? What possible relation
has the book which stirred such enthusiasm in the
Crampton pastor and his wife to the life that I see before
me?” The doctor grew timid. The doctor was
actually frightened. He wished that Fanny Gilbert's
“career” had taken another direction, and that Fanny
Gilbert's father had been less a fool.

At length the bell of the Bunker Hill began to toll,
and then a dingy mulatto, in dingy satinet, went back
and forth in the boat, warning with a professional twang
all those to “go ashore that's going,” and ringing a
hand-bell to attract attention to his message. The

wheels began to move, the last straggler crossed the
plank, the lines were cast off, and the boat wheeled into
the stream, and was soon under full headway.

Dr. Gilbert's quick, observant eyes had scanned
every passenger he met. He was alone, bound to a
great city, which, though a man of experience, he had
never seen. He longed for companionship. Among
those who had most impressed him was a tall gentleman
of middle age, in spectacles. He seemed to be
alone, and had the appearance of being a literary man,
just the kind of man whose acquaintance he would like
to make. This solitary gentleman soon came to monopolize
all the doctor's attention. He had an air of
profound reflection; and when he made remark upon
the scenery to any person near whom he might be
standing, it was always accompanied by some new and
striking attitude, and by a gesture of the hands at once
so graceful and natural, that the doctor concluded that
he must be some great public speaker.

The gentleman seemed to be aware that he had at
tracted the doctor's eye, and came up and took a position
near him, with his thumbs in the armholes of his
waistcoat, his left foot finely thrown out in advance, and
his eye evidently drinking in the beauties of the scene.

“This seems to be a fine country,” suggested the
doctor.

“Rich, sir, rich in all the elements of fertility, and,
as a poetic friend of mine would say, redolent of sweets,”
responded the gentleman.

The doctor was struck by the language, and hardly
knew how to continue conversation. The tones of the
gentleman's voice were deep and rich, and the gentleman

himself seemed to rejoice in them. He did not
change his position; so the doctor said: “We have
quite a large company on board to-day.”

“Yes, sir, yes,” responded the stranger.

“Many very interesting-looking people.”

“Yes, to me the human face divine is the most interesting
vision of nature. I turn from fields to faces,
as I turn from earth to heaven.”

The doctor was almost stunned. At length he ventured
the suggestion that the boat seemed to be a very
fine one, and a great improvement upon the stage-coach.

“Yes, sir, yes,” responded the stranger with magnificent
emphasis; “fit emblem of human life, bearing
us down to the bosom of the mighty ocean.”

Having delivered himself, the stranger turned and
moved grandly away, but Dr. Gilbert had no intention
of parting with him thus. So he resolved that he would
not lose sight of him, and followed him at a distance.
He saw him engaged with another passenger, and went
up behind him. The fresh interlocutor was overheard
to remark upon the filthy condition of a landing they
were passing.

“Rich, sir, rich,” responded the magnificent stranger,
“in all the elements of fertility, and, as a poetic
friend of mine would say, not redolent of sweets.”

“You are hard on 'em,” said the astonished fellow,
with a peculiar smile.

“I hate towns,” said his highness. “I turn from
towns to faces as I turn from earth to heaven.”

“Well! you'll find faces enough on the boat here,
I should think,” said the fellow.

“Aye, the boat! the boat! fit emblem of human

life, bearing us down to the bosom of the mighty
ocean.”

Having redelivered himself of these splendid sentences,
the stranger turned gracefully away, leaving his
companion puzzled and dumb. The latter caught the
eye of Dr. Gilbert, and came up to him with the inquiry,
“Know that feller?”

The doctor replied that he did not, but would like
to find him out.

“He is rather numerous, ain't he?” responded the
man.

Dr. Gilbert, preferring magniloquence to slang,
turned away still unsatisfied, and determined to see
more of the man who had interested him so much.
Keeping at a decent distance from him, he heard him
for a half an hour ringing his changes on the beauty of
the human face divine, the richness of nature in all the
elements of fertility, and the steamer Bunker Hill as a
fit emblem of human life, bearing him and the rest of
the company down to the bosom of the mighty ocean.
Then the bell of the steamer rang, and the boat ran in
and threw out her lines at the Middletown landing. A
number of passengers came on, and a number debarked.
Among the latter, much to the doctor's surprise, was
the stranger with the spectacles, carrying in one hand a
diminutive carpet-bag, and in the other a little oblong
case, that looked very much as if it contained a violin.

“Found out who that feller is,” said a voice in the
doctor's ear—the voice of the man who thought the
stranger so “numerous.”

“Ah!” responded the doctor. “Who is he?”

“Well, he's a rovin' singin'-master, by the name of

Peebles,” replied the man; and then added, “they call
him the pasteboard man round here. You see he thinks
he's a man, but he's nothing but pasteboard. He sort
o' stands round, and spreads, and lets off all the big
talk he hears. Ain't he rather numerous, though?”

“I have never been so disappointed in a man in my
life,” responded the doctor, with equal gravity and earnestness.

“You come from up country, I guess,” said the
man, taking in a fresh quid of tobacco. “That wasn't
the only pasteboard man on this boat, by a long chalk.”

“What do you mean, sir?” inquired the doctor,
suspecting that the fellow was quizzing him.

“Well, see that old feller with the gals there?”

“The old gentleman with an eye-glass? Yes.”

“Take him for a member of Congress, wouldn't
you?”

“I confess,” replied the doctor, “that it had occurred
to me that he might be in public position.”

“Well he does look numerous, that's a fact; but
he keeps tavern, and spells breakfast b-r-e-c-k, breck,
f-i-r-s-t, first, breckfirst. Fact—saw it on a bill. Lots
of 'em all round here in the same way. I come from up
country myself, and I s'pose I know how all these slick
fellers look to you, but three-quarters of 'em are pasteboard,
jest like Peebles. Now you don't know it, but
you are the most sensible-looking old cove there is on
this boat, and these pasteboard fellers know it, too.
Goin' to New York?”

“I am on my way to New York,” replied the doctor,
ignoring the compliment.

“Where do you put up?”

“I have not determined.”

“Lucky,” responded the man, drawing a card from
his pocket. “That's the house for you—City Hotel. I
always stop there—right in the centre. You may keep
that card if you are a mind to. It's one I brought
away, but I know the street.”

The doctor received the card gratefully, and the accommodating
fellow turned away, and was soon busy
in conversation with a group of countrymen, to each of
whom he handed a card, that looked very much like the
one which the doctor put in his pocket.

Dr. Gilbert began to open his eyes. He was not
so insignificant a man after all. Very much encouraged,
he began to make conversation with one and
another, and before the day expired, he had established
friendly relations with quite an extensive circle of men
and women, with whom he discussed politics, religion,
education, and all the leading subjects of general interest,
proving himself to be quite the equal of the most
intelligent of the company.

The long day wore away, and nightfall found the
gallant steamer ploughing the waters of the Sound. It
was not until midnight that the lights of the great city
showed themselves, and the boat, with its freight of life,
ran in among a forest of masts, and was made fast to
the wharf. The doctor was anxious. He had secured
his trunk, and stood firmly by it while beset by the
crowd of importunate hackmen. At length his acquaintance
of the card appeared, and calling to a rough-looking
fellow, said: “This gentleman goes up to the
house.” Then, slipping his arm through that of the
doctor, and ordering the porter to carry out his trunk,

he conducted him to the City Hotel carriage, already
full and piled with baggage, and managed to get him in.

The doctor awoke the next morning with a dull,
heavy roar sounding in his ears, and then rose and
looked abroad from his high window upon housetops
and chimneys, and busy streets and sidewalks, thronged
with early passengers going to their daily employments.
The vision was a novel one, and would have been very
agreeable, had not the thought of his unfinished and unpromising
errand constantly intruded itself. What
could Tristram Trevanion do in such a place as that?
Who would care for the Hounds of the Whippoorwill
Hills?

Dr. Theophilus Gilbert shaved himself very carefully,
put on the best linen that Crampton ever saw,
and robed himself in a black broadcloth suit, made by
the Crampton tailor, and only brought out on very
pleasant Sabbath days, or great secular occasions. He
descended to breakfast, and was exceedingly pleased
with the attentions bestowed upon him by the waiters.
It really seemed to him that he was securing a larger
share of attention than anybody else, and that those less
favored must look upon him with a measure of envy.
Breakfast concluded, he devoted half an hour to the Directory,
copying the names of the principal publishing
houses, with their street and number. Then he held a
long conversation with a fat bar-keeper, (who, in his
shirt-sleeves and a paper cap, was polishing off the outside
and filling the inside of his bottles,) with relation
to the locations he wished to find, and then he started
out, with the manuscript novel under his arm, to attend
to his business.

He had not given up the Kilgores. He was entirely
faithless as to their having seen his letter. So he made
his way to the great house of the Kilgores, and entered
it with assumed courage, though, to tell the truth, he
felt more like a beggar than a gentleman in easy circumstances.
He inquired of a clerk, whom he had
some difficulty in apprising of his presence, for “the
head of the house.”

“The old man, I suppose,” said the young man, listlessly.

The doctor said, “Yes, sir,” at a venture.

“Oh! he won't be down town these two hours,” replied
the clerk. “You'll have to wait.”

The doctor waited. He was bound to see Kilgore
the elder, before any other publisher. He walked up
and down the long salesroom, looking at the shelves
deeply packed with books, and the cases full of the pets
of the public, dressed in gorgeous gold and morocco,
and wondered what kind of a figure his manuscript
would make in such brilliant society. Alas! how could
room be made in such a crowded establishment for
Tristram Trevanion?

He had begun to tire of this thirftless employment,
when the clerk, to whom he had originally spoken, came
out from behind the counter, and, inviting him into the
elder Kilgore's private office, told him that he could sit
there quietly and read the papers, until the head of the
house should make his appearance. He accepted the
invitation, and was conducted back to a little room, carpeted
and neatly furnished. At a desk sat a lean, middle-aged
man, engaged with bills and letters. At his
side were piles of proof-sheets, waiting for examination.

At a window, stood a seedy-looking man of fifty, in
brown clothes, with his hat on, gazing out upon a dead-wall,
and apparently absorbed by reflection. The clerk
looked up, nodded, waved the doctor into a chair,
pointed to a newspaper, and went on with his work.

As the doctor took his seat and the newspaper, the
seedy-looking man in brown turned around, and came
toward him. Dr. Gilbert noticed the wildness of his
eyes and the dingy pallor of his face, and, with professional
readiness, perceived the malady that afflicted him.
The stranger seized the doctor's hand, and shaking it
warmly, said: “This is Mr. Kilgore. May the Lord
bless him, and cause his face to shine upon him!”

“You are mistaken,” replied the doctor. “My
name is not Kilgore. On the contrary, I am waiting to
see Mr. Kilgore, as I presume you are.”

“Then you are not Kilgore, eh? Who are you?”

“My name is Gilbert,” replied the doctor.

“Your Christian name?”

“Theophilus.”

“Theophilus, I salute you. All the saints salute
you. What are your views of the millennium?”

“I can't say,” replied the doctor, “that I have any
very distinct views of the millennium. I suppose everybody
will be very good and very happy.”

“Yes, but how are they to be made good and happy?
That's the grand secret, sir, and that secret is hid in me,
an unworthy vessel. You behold in me, sir, the forerunner
of an epoch—the John the Baptist of the Second
Coming.”

The doctor was amused, and asked him to declare
his secret.

“It's soon to be published to the world. The Kilgores
have had it all night. In the mean time, I have
no objection to saying to you privately that it's flesh.
You know how it was with the children of Israel when
they gathered quails in the wilderness, ten homers a
piece. While the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere
it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against
the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very
great plague. God made man upright, but he has been
eating dead animals so long that he has lost the divine
image, and become a beast. All we have to do to
bring about the millennium is to stop eating dead animals,
and to refrain from drinking the blood of beasts.
The cattle upon a thousand hills are the Lord's, not
ours, sir; and when the blessed thousand years shall
dawn, and these cursed slaughter-houses are shut up,
even the animals of the forest will be partakers of the
benefit, for the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the
cow and the bear shall feed together.”

Dr. Gilbert might have been held a listener to the
crazy reformer's scheme for the regeneration of the race
for an uncomfortable period, but, at this moment, the
elder Kilgore appeared, and in company with him a
gentleman exceedingly well dressed, carrying a cane.
Mr. Kilgore removed his hat from his high, bald head,
and laid it upon the window-sill. “Positively now,”
said he continuing a conversation with the young man
which had been interrupted by his entrance, “you must
give us something in the fall. The public expect it,
you know. You have had a great success, and the
market is wide open for you. Just a little less religion,
eh? You must positively bend to me in this. I think

I know the market: not quite so much religion. People
are not fond of it. Sermon on the Mount, spread rather
thin, goes very well—but not too much—not too much.”

The young man laughed jocularly, twirled his cane,
and said: “Perhaps I did spread it on rather thick the
last time; but really, now, Mr. Kilgore, I think there
is a religious vein that will pay for working.”

“Undoubtedly! But, to make a marketable book,
religion must be sprinkled in, in about the proportion
that we find it in the world. Then it goes very well,
and offends nobody. In fact, I think irreligious people
like enough of the article to give a book a kind of flavor
or smack of piety, and that is usually enough to satisfy
the church.”

“Well, I'll think of it,” responded the young man.

The doctor had listened to this business conversation
in silent astonishment. The reformer watched the
pair with burning eyes, and coming up to the young
man, he extended toward him his long, thin finger, and
said: “Through covetousness shall they with feigned
words make merchandise of you, whose judgment now
of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth
not. There's religion for you, clean and solid,
right out of the Bible; no sprinkling about that.”

“Ruddock! Ruddock!” called Mr. Kilgore, excitedly.
“Who is this person? What does he want
here?”

“I am the Prophet of the Second Coming,” answered
the man for himself.

“This is his second coming,” replied the clerk, “and
I shall be glad to see his second going.”

“What is his business, Ruddock?”

“He is the man who left the manuscript on the millennium
yesterday,” replied Ruddock.

“Oh! yes. Well, sir, our engagements are such
that we couldn't think of undertaking it. Besides, its
contents are not of a popular character. Nobody cares
any thing about the millennium, and you, I judge, are
not the man to treat upon it. Ruddock, give this person
his manuscript.”

Ruddock handed out a small, dirty roll of paper, and
the reformer pocketed it.

“Ruddock,” said Mr. Kilgore, “be kind enough to
open the door, and show this person out.”

The man stood irresolute, and commenced to speak,
when Ruddock laid his hand upon his shoulder, and he
retired shaking the dust from his heels, or trying to,
and distributing anathemas right and left. The young
author, whom Mr. Kilgore had been courting and counselling
so daintily, pleaded an engagement, and soon followed
the author of the work on the millennium.

“You have business with me, sir?” said Mr. Kilgore,
turning to the doctor.

“I have,” replied Dr. Gilbert, and added: “Perhaps
this note, which I received from your house, will introduce
it.”

Mr. Kilgore took the note, and ran his eye over it.

“Did you ever see the letter before?” inquired the
doctor.

“I think not,” replied Mr. Kilgore.

“Did you ever see the letter from me to which this
is a reply?”

“I presume not. Ruddock attends to these things.
By the way, Ruddock, I see we are out of blanks.

You've had to write the whole of this. How long have
we been out of blanks?”

“Not long,” replied the confidential clerk; “I didn't
have to write more than a dozen complete. I have
plenty now.”

“Do you mean to be understood, Mr. Kilgore, that
you have blank replies to such applications as mine?”
inquired the doctor, in undisguised astonishment.

“Certainly, sir,” said Mr. Kilgore. “You see we
have an average of three such applications as yours a
day. Three hundred working days in a year makes it
necessary to send nine hundred letters. Well, we have
so much to do that the blank saves time, and affords a
nice little chance for advertising. It's really quite a
matter of economy.”

“Of course, then,” said Dr. Gilbert, “you have decided
on my daughter's book without giving it any consideration.
I wish you to see it, and personally to become
acquainted with its merits.”

The great publisher laughed. Mr. Ruddock overheard
the remark, and laughed too. “Bless your soul,
sir,” said Mr. Kilgore, “I never read a book; I haven't
time.”

“Somebody reads, I suppose,” continued the doctor,
“and I wish my daughter to have a chance.”

“My literary man,” said Mr. Kilgore, “would read
it if it were of any use, but my engagements are such
that I cannot take the book. Besides, the novel market
is perfectly flat. I think, perhaps, Kapp & Demigh
might do something for you.”

“What class of books does the young man who
has just left you produce?” inquired the doctor.

“Oh! that was young Fitzgerald, the most popular
and promising novelist of the day. Great faculty for
hitting the popular taste just in the bull's eye,—just—
in—the—bull's—eye.” And Mr. Kilgore rubbed his
hands pleasantly together, and told over a package of
letters, as if they were a pack of cards.

“I see your engagements are not such as to prevent
you from making a new one with him, nor the novel
market so flat as to fail of responding to him,” said the
doctor, with a bitter tone.

Mr. Kilgore smiled. Mr. Ruddock looked up, and
smiled also. “You are sharp,” said Mr. Kilgore. “You
are hard on me.”

“You will allow me to return the compliment, and
repeat the accusation,” responded the doctor, rising
angrily to his feet.

“We profess to understand our business here,” said
Mr. Kilgore, entirely unruffled. “Ruddock and I manage
to get along very well; eh! Ruddock, don't we?”

“In our small way,” responded the clerk, with
pleasant irony, not stopping for a moment in his work.

“Yes, yes, in our small way,” repeated Mr. Kilgore;
and then he began to bustle about his desk in a
way that said, “I wish this old fellow would take his
leave; why don't he go?”

Dr. Gilbert was not accustomed to being treated in
this way at all; and it irritated him exceedingly. He
turned lingeringly toward the door; then hesitated, and
then said calmly: “Mr. Kilgore, do you think this is
treating my daughter fairly?”

“Why, bless your soul, my good friend,” exclaimed
Mr. Kilgore, “I've been treating you very politely.

To save your feelings, I have told you that my engagements
are such that I cannot take your book, and that
the novel market is flat. Now, if you want the truth,
it is that a publisher's engagements are never such that
he cannot take hold of a book that will sell, and that
the novel market is always flat to new-comers. There,
you have the whole of it, and as you are probably going
the rounds here in New York, I'll pay you something
handsome if you find a single publisher who will give
you the real reason he has for refusing your manuscript.”

“I thank you for your present frankness, at least,”
said the doctor.

“Well, come back and sit down,” said Mr. Kilgore
warmly, as a new thought seemed to strike him.
“Ruddock, be kind enough to leave us till I call you.
Sit down, sir, sit down!”

The confidential clerk looked up surprised, took up
some of his papers, and retired.

“You say,” said Mr. Kilgore, drawing his chair
close to Dr. Gilbert, “that this novel is written by
your daughter. Is she an obedient daughter?”

“Well,” replied the doctor, a good deal puzzled,
“she has a strong will, but she is mainly obedient.
Fanny is a good girl, and not without genius, I think.”

“D—n the genius! Is she obedient? That's the
question. Is she willing to honor your judgment in
every thing?”

“I can't say that she is; in fact, this book of hers
was written against my will, and I am only sorry at
this moment that I had not enforced my wishes.”

“That's enough,” replied Mr. Kilgore, while his eye

flashed angrily. “I wouldn't publish her book if I
knew I should sell a million copies of it.”

“You are strangely excited,” said Dr. Gilbert;
“and you will allow me to say that you greatly exaggerate
my daughter's disposition to disobedience.”

“Yes—excited—yes! I've seen something of disobedient
daughters. When your Fanny snaps her fingers
in your face, and raises the devil with all your
arrangements, as she's sure to do, sooner or later,
you'll be excited,—very strangely excited. Yes! By
the way, whom are you going to now with your book?”

“I have Kapp & Demigh, and Ballou & Gold, on
my note-book,” replied Dr. Gilbert.

“Good houses, both of them,” said Mr. Kilgore;
“but don't go beyond them, or you'll get into trouble.
At any rate, keep out of Sargent's hands—the ripest
young scoundrel that ever wore a sanctimonious face,
or whined at a prayer-meeting. I know him. He used
to be a clerk of mine.”

The doctor laid the name of Sargent carefully away
in his mind, left the strangely acting publisher as soon
as he could, and went directly to the City Hotel, to
think over his morning's adventures, get some dinner,
and lay out his work for the afternoon.

From the moment Sargent's name was mentioned,
Dr. Gilbert had felt that Sargent was his man. He
could not fail to detect in Mr. Kilgore a strong personal
enmity toward this young publisher. His mind,
too, had in it that perverse element which rebelled
against all dictation, whether intended for his good or
not. He did not like Mr. Kilgore at all; and as the
probability was that Mr. Sargent did not like him at

all, they would be apt to like one another, and get along
together very well. Besides, Dr. Gilbert had had sufficient
experience with first-class houses, and was ready
to try a little lower down.

Accordingly, after dinner, Dr. Gilbert held another
examination of the Directory, and another conversation
with the fat bar-keeper in paper cap and shirt-sleeves,
and issued out to find the unpretending establishment of
young Sargent. This he succeeded in doing; and inquiring
for Mr. Sargent, he was directed to a young man
in a brown linen coat, engaged in nailing up a box of
books—a lithe, springy, driving fellow, with a bright,
open face, and an unmistakable air of business about
him. The doctor loved him at once. All the Kilgores
in Christendom could not frighten him from such an
apparent impersonation of good nature, determined enterprise,
and laborious activity.

The doctor waited until the publisher had nailed his
box, and then told him he would like to see him privately.
The young man doffed his brown linen, and
donned a more dignified article, and then invited the
doctor into what he good-humoredly called his “den.”

Mr. Frank Sargent was frank by nature, as by
name, and when Dr. Gilbert made known his business,
he said: “Well, sir, I suppose you have been the
rounds. They all do before they come to me.”

“On the contrary, I have been to but one concern,”
replied the doctor.

“Whose was that?”

“The Kilgores'.”

“The Kilgores'? They didn't tell you to come to
me!” exclaimed Mr. Sargent in astonishment.

“Not at all; they warned me against you.”

“And why do you come?”

“Because I thought I should like a young man whom
the elder Kilgore did not.”

Mr. Frank Sargent tried to smile, but his lip quivered,
he put his hand to his forehead, and exclaimed,
“God forgive him!” Then he pushed out his hands
impatiently, as if warning away a crowd of unwelcome
thoughts and memories, and said: “Well, let's talk
about the book.”

The first thing Mr. Sargent did was to tell Dr. Gilbert
all about his business—what disadvantages he labored
under—what lack of capital he suffered from—
what treatment he was constantly receiving from heavy
houses that could undersell him, or give longer time on
accounts. Gradually he came to the book, and revealed
to the doctor the fact that he could not alone run the
risk of publishing it, even if he should like it. The
doctor would have to agree to share any loss that might
attend its publication; and it was concluded, after a full
and free conversation, that Mr. Sargent should read the
manuscript, and that Dr. Gilbert should return home
and await the result.

Mr. Sargent obligingly conducted the doctor back to
his hotel, treated him with a great deal of consideration,
came for him in the evening, and walked with him to
some of the principal points of interest in the city, was
at the boat on the following morning to see him safely off,
and then he bade him good-bye. The doctor started for
his home quite satisfied—determined, in fact, that he
would pay for the publication of “Tristram Trevanion”
entirely, rather than have Mr. Frank Sargent poorer
for it by a dollar.