At Barlow's I found the queerest collection of people, most of them women of the inkiest description.

The great Fadge himself surprised me; I expected to see a gaunt, bilious man, and he was the rosiest and dumpiest little dandy you can imagine; a fellow of forty-five, I dare say, with thin yellow hair and blue eyes and a manner of extreme innocence.

Fadge flattered me with confidential chat, and I discovered at length why Barlow had asked me to meet him; it's Fadge that is going to edit Culpepper's new monthly--you've heard about it ?--and he had actually thought it worth while to enlist me among contributors! Now, how's that for a piece of news ?' The speaker looked from Reardon to Amy with a smile of vast significance.
'I rejoice to hear it!' said Reardon, fervently.
'You see! you see!' cried Jasper, forgetting all about the infant in the next room, 'all things come to the man who knows how to wait.

But I'm hanged if I expected a thing of this kind to come so soon! Why, I'm a man of distinction! My doings have been noted; the admirable qualities of my style have drawn attention; I'm looked upon as one of the coming men! Thanks, I confess, in some measure, to old Barlow; he seems to have amused himself with cracking me up to all and sundry.

That last thing of mine in The West End has done me a vast amount of good, it seems.