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Page 7
In this protracted struggle with fate and his own incompetence, the
nature of GRUBLET, never a very amiable one, became fatally soured,
and when he finally managed to secure a humble post on a newspaper, he
was a disappointed man with rage in his heart against his successful
rivals and against the Editors who, as he thought, had maliciously
chilled his glowing aspirations. His vanity, however,--and he was
always a very vain man--had suffered no diminution, and with the
first balmy breezes of success his arrogance grew unbounded. Shortly
afterwards, he chanced to come in the way of CHEPSTOWE; he impressed
the poet favourably, and in the result he was selected for a place
on the staff of _The Metropolitan Messenger_, then striving by every
known method to battle its way into a circulation.
It was at this stage in his career that I met GRUBLET. He was pointed
out to me as a young man of promise who had a trenchant style, and had
lately written an article on "Provincialism in Literature," which had
caused some stir by its bitter and uncompromising attacks upon certain
well-known authors and journalists. I looked at the man with some
interest. I saw a pale-faced, sandy-haired little creature with a
shuffling, weak-kneed gait, who looked as if a touch from a moderately
vigorous arm would have swept him altogether out of existence.
His manner was affected and unpleasant, his conversation the most
disagreeable I ever listened to. He was coarse, not with an ordinary
coarseness, but with a kind of stale, fly-blown coarseness as of
the viands in the window of a cheap restaurant. He assumed a great
reverence for RABELAIS and ARISTOPHANES; he told shady stories,
void of point and humour, which you were to suppose were modelled
on the style of these two masters. And all the time he gave you to
understand, with a blatant self-sufficiency, that he himself was one
of the greatest and most formidable beings in existence. This was
GRUBLET as I first knew him, and so he continued to the end.
The one thing this puny creature could never forgive was that any
of his friends should pass him in the race. There was one whom
GRUBLET--the older of the two--had at one time honoured with his
patronage and approval. No sooner, however, had the younger gained a
literary success, than the sour GRUBLET turned upon him, and rent him.
"This fellow," said GRUBLET, "will get too uppish--I must show up his
trash"; and accordingly he fulminated against his friend in the organ
that he had by that time come to consider as his own. This baseless
sense of proprietorship, in fact, it was that wrecked GRUBLET. In an
evil moment for himself he tried to ride rough-shod over CHEPSTOWE,
and that temporary genius dismissed him with a promptitude that should
stand to his credit against many shortcomings. GRUBLET, I believe,
still exists. Occasionally, in obscure prints, I seem to detect traces
of his style. But no one now pays any attention to him. His claws
are clipped, his teeth have been filed down. He shouts and struts,
unregarded. For we live, of course, in milder and more reasonable
days, and the GRUBLETS can no longer find a popular market for their
wares.
Only one question remains. How in the world can even you, oh respected
SWAGGER, have derived any pleasure from witnessing the performances
that GRUBLET went through, after you had persuaded him that he was
a man of some importance? I do not expect an answer, and remain as
before,
DIOGENES ROBINSON.
* * * * *
IN BANCO.--The stability of the concern having been effectually proved
by the way in which the Birkbeckers got out of the fire and out of the
trying pan-ic, and the ease with which they were quite at home to the
crowds of callers coming to inquire after their health, should earn
for them the subsidiary title of the Birk-beck-and-call Bank.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A GOOD BEGINNING.
_Uncle Jack_ (_Umpire_). "LOVE ALL!"
_Monsieur le Baron_. "LOVE ALL? PARBLEU! JE CROIS BIEN! ZEY ARE
_ADORABLES_, YOUR NIECES!"]
* * * * *
PAN THE POSTER.
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