Are they coming?"
"They are only at the first stair."
"Mr. Triplet, your face is a book, where one may read strange matters.
For Heaven's sake, compose yourself. Let all the risk lie in one
countenance. Look at me, sir. Make your face like the Book of Daniel in a
Jew's back parlor. Volto Sciolto is your cue."
"Madam, madam, how your tongue goes! I hear them on the stairs. Pray
don't speak!"
"Do you know what we are going to do?" continued the tormenting Peggy.
"We are going to weigh goose's feathers! to criticise criticism, Trip--"
"Hush! hush!"
A grampus was heard outside the door, and Triplet opened it. There was
Quin leading the band.
"Have a care, sir," cried Triplet; "there is a hiatus the third step from
the door."
"A _gradus ad Parnassum_ a wanting," said Mr. Cibber.
Triplet's heart sank. The hole had been there six months, and he had
found nothing witty to say about it, and at first sight Mr. Cibber had
done its business. And on such men he and his portrait were to attempt a
preposterous delusion. Then there was Snarl, who wrote critiques on
painting, and guided the national taste. The unlucky exhibitor was in a
cold sweat. He led the way, like a thief going to the gallows.
"The picture being unfinished, gentlemen," said he, "must, if you would
do me justice, be seen from a--a focus; must be judged from here, I
mean.
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