Page:Headlong Hall - Peacock (1816).djvu/89

 she taught to consider themselves as a sort of commodity, to be put up at public auction, and knocked down to the highest bidder. Mr. Nightshade and Mr. Mac Laurel joined the trio; and it was secretly resolved, that Miss Philomela should furnish them with a portion of her manuscripts, and that Messieurs Gall & Co. should devote the following morning to cutting and drying a critique on a work calculated to prove so extensively beneficial, that Mr. Gall protested he really envied the writer.

While this amiable and enlightened quintetto were busily employed in flattering one another, Mr. Cranium retired to complete the preparations he had begun in the morning for a lecture with which he intended, on some future evening, to favour the company: Sir Patrick O'Prism walked out into the grounds to study the effect of moonlight on the snow-clad