The Cords of Vanity

I had aforetime ordered Mr. George Bulmer to read The Apostates, and, as the author of this volume explained, from motives that were purely well-meaning. Tonight I was superintending the process.

"For the scene of the book is the Green Chalybeate," said I; "and it may be my masterly rhetoric will so far awaken your benighted soul, Uncle George, as to enable you to perceive what the more immediate scenery is really like. Why, think of it! what if you should presently fall so deeply in love with the adjacent mountains as to consent to overlook the deficiencies of the more adjacent café! Try now, nunky! try hard to think that the right verb is really more important than the right vermouth! and you have no idea what good it may do you."