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
sparingly, some of the green passages, and add a little comedy, and
cheerfulness, and satire, and that sort of thing, and then we'll take
him to market, and sell him. The book is not a wonder of wonders, but
it will do very well."
"Do you think so, Warrington?" said Pen, delighted; for this was great
praise from his cynical friend.
"You silly young fool! I think it's uncommonly clever," Warrington
said in a kind voice. "So do you, sir." And with the manuscript which
he held in his hand he playfully struck Pen on the cheek. That part of
Pen's countenance turned as red as it had ever done in the earliest
days of his blushes: he grasped the other's hand and said, "Thank you,
Warrington," with all his might; and then he retired to his own room
with his book, and passed the greater part of the day upon his bed
re-reading it: and he did as Warrington had advised, and altered not a
little, and added a great deal, until at length he had fashioned
"Walter Lorraine" pretty much into the shape in which, as the
respected novel-reader knows, it subsequently appeared.
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