Steyneville (Volume 3); Or Fated Fortunes, Being the Memoirs of an Unextraordinary Man

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. Next morning I was up betimes, and arousing the Colonel, who slept very near as soundly as his namesake, only destroying the illusion with the noise emanating from his nostrils, left him to dress, and paid an early visit to my lord, who lived in a more fashionable quarter, but not far from his soldier friend. Leaving the Colonel's lodging, I arrived at my lord's dwelling, and his man told me that his master was in his room. I was shown to his apartment, where, to my surprise, I found him at a table writing as for dear life. Three empty bottles were beside him, and he himself had not been to bed, for it stood in a corner unruffled, untouched, and VOL. III. Y unlain upon. His coat and waistcoat had been cast recklessly on the floor, for there they laid obviously enough. His hair had been tied back hastily and carelessly with a ribbon to prevent it from falling about his neck and paper as he wrote, and though it was already broad daylight, half-a-dozen candles still burned in their sticks. Directly he heard me enter he laid down his pen and shook hands cordially with me. In answer to my question if I. could be of service to him as he dressed, he pointed to the seat he vacated on my entrance, and asked me to read what he had written, unrolling a manuscript as he spoke. He was ready for walking when I had finished it. Well, secretary, he said, lightly, find anything to correct, hey? I had not. When is the world to have the poem? I asked. Never, he returned, taking it from my hand and locking it into an escritoire. Never; there let it lie, here in this dusty place, as a monument of what might have been. Might have been? I repeated, earnestly. No, no, my lord. What can be--what should be--what is there to prevent--...