Rose, Blanche, and Violet, Volume II by George Henry Lewes

These are the arts, Lothario, which shrink acres / Into brief yards -- bring sterling pounds to farthings, / Credit to infamy; and the poor gull, / Who might have lived an honoured easy life, / To ruin and an unregarded grave. / _Beaumont and Fletcher._

Cecil was rattling away on his piano one afternoon, fancying he was composing, when the door opened, and in walked a gentleman enveloped in a pea-coat, whom Cecil saluted warmly as Frank Forrester; and after endless questions and vociferous laughter on both sides, they both sat down to indulge in rapid biographical reminiscences from the time of their last meeting.