They will laugh at the report.
All the greater reason is it that we should not indulge them at such
periods; and I say woe's me for any brother of the pen, and one in some
esteem, who dressed the report of that presentation of the Address of
congratulation by Mr. Bailiff Tinman, of Crikswich! Herbert Fellingham
wreaked his personal spite on Tinman. He should have bethought him that
it involved another than Tinman that is to say, an office--which the
fitful beast rejoices to paw and play with contemptuously now and then,
one may think, as a solace to his pride, and an indemnification for those
caprices of abject worship so strongly recalling the days we see through
Mr. Darwin's glasses.
He should not have written the report. It sent a titter over England. He
was so unwise as to despatch a copy of the newspaper containing it to Van
Diemen Smith. Van Diemen perused it with satisfaction. So did Tinman.
Both of these praised the able young writer. But they handed the paper to
the Coastguard Lieutenant, who asked Tinman how he liked it; and visitors
were beginning to drop in to Crikswich, who made a point of asking for a
sight of the chief man; and then came a comic publication, all in the
Republican tone of the time, with Man's Dignity for the standpoint, and
the wheezy laughter residing in old puns to back it, in eulogy of the
satiric report of the famous Address of congratulation of the Bailiff of
Crikswich.
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