CHAPTER IV.
TRIPLET, the Cerberus of art, who had the first bark in this legend, and has since been out of hearing, ran from Lambeth to Covent Garden, on receipt of Mr.Vane's note.

But ran he never so quick, he had built a full-sized castle in the air before he reached Bow Street.
The letter hinted at an order upon his muse for amatory verse; delightful task, cheering prospect.
Bid a man whose usual lot it is to break stones for the parish at tenpence the cubic yard--bid such an one play at marbles with some stone taws for half an hour per day, and pocket one pound one--bid a poor horse who has drawn those stones about, and browsed short grass by the wayside--bid him canter a few times round a grassy ring, and then go to his corn--in short, bid Rosinante change with Pegasus, and you do no more than Mr.Vane's letter held out to Triplet.
The amatory verse of that day was not up-hill work.

There was a beaten track on a dead level, and you followed it.

You told the tender creature, with a world of circumlocution, that, "without joking now," she was a leper, ditto a tigress, item marble.

You next feigned a lucid interval, and to be on the point of detesting your monster, but in twenty more verses love became, as usual, stronger than reason, and you wound up your rotten yarn thus: You hugged a golden chain.