BOOK V.--INITIAL CHAPTER.

"I hope, Pisistratus," said my father, "that you do not intend to be dull!"

"Heaven forbid, sir! what could make you ask such a question? _Intend!_ No! if I am dull it is from innocence."

"A very long Discourse upon Knowledge!" said my father; "very long. I should cut it out!"

I looked upon my father as a Byzantian sage might have looked on a Vandal. "Cut it out!"

"Stops the action, sir!" said my father, dogmatically.

"Action! But a novel is not a drama."

"No, it is a great deal longer--twenty times as long, I dare say," replied Mr. Caxton, with a sigh.

"Well, sir--well! I think my Discourse upon Knowledge has much to do with the subject--is vitally essential to the subject; does not stop the action--only explains and elucidates the action. And I am astonished, sir, that you, a scholar, and a cultivator of knowledge--"

"There--there!" cried my father, deprecatingly. "I yield--I yield. What better could I expect when I set up for a critic! What author ever lived that did not fly into a passion--even with his own father, if his father presumed to say--'Cut out!' _Pacem imploro_--"

MRS. CAXTON.--"My dear Austin, I am sure Pisistratus did not mean to offend you, and I have no doubt he will take your--"

PISISTRATUS (hastily).--"Advice _for the future_, certainly. I will quicken the action, and--"

"Go on with the Novel," whispered Roland, looking up from his eternal account-book. "We have lost £200 by our barley!"

Therewith I plunged my pen into the ink, and my thoughts into the "Fair Shadowland."