Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/124

94 the Romance, you will slash the Inquiry and plaster the Epic!"

"I will do my best, Sir!" said Paul, with that modest yet noble simplicity which becomes the virtuously ambitious;—and Mac Grawler forthwith gave him pen and paper, and set him down to his undertaking.

He had the good fortune to please Mac Grawler, who, after having made a few corrections in style, declared he evinced a peculiar genius in that branch of composition. And then it was that Paul, made conceited by praise, said, looking contemptuously in the face of his preceptor, and swinging his legs to and fro,—"And what, Sir, shall I receive for the plastered Epic and the slashed Inquiry!" As the face of the schoolboy who, when guessing, as he thinks rightly, at the meaning of some mysterious word in Cornelius Nepos, receiveth not the sugared epithet of praise, but a sudden stroke across the os humerosve, even so, blank, puzzled, and thunder-stricken, waxed the face of Mr. Mac Grawler, at the abrupt and astounding audacity of Paul.

"Receive!" he repeated, "receive!—Why you