Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

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invention. He and an advertisement agent fell out about a question of money, the affair was
brought before the courts, and the little plot so got wind. But there is no reason why you
should not take the plot and act on it yourself. You are a known man; the public relishes
your works; anything bearing the name of Snooks is eagerly read by the masses; and
though Messrs. Hookey, of Holywell Street, pay you handsomely, I make no doubt you
would like to be rewarded at a still higher figure.
"Unless he writes with a purpose, you know, a novelist in our days is good for nothing.
This one writes with a socialist purpose; that with a conservative purpose: this author or
authoress with the most delicate skill insinuates Catholicism into you, and you find yourself
all but a Papist in the third volume: another doctors you with Low Church remedies to work
inwardly upon you, and which you swallow down unsuspiciously, as children do calomel in
jelly. Fiction advocates all sorts of truth and causes—doesn't the delightful bard of the
Minories find Moses in everything? M. Gonzales's plan, and the one which I recommend to
my dear Snooks, simply was to write an advertisement novel. Look over The Times or the
'Directory,' walk down Regent Street or Fleet Street any day—see what houses advertise
most, and put yourself into communication with their proprietors. With your rings, your
chains, your studs, and the tip on your chin, I don't know any greater swell than Bob
Snooks. Walk into the shops, I say, ask for the principal, and introduce yourself, saying, 'I
am the great Snooks; I am the author of the "Mysteries of May Fair;" my weekly sale is
281,000; I am about to produce a new work called "The Palaces of Pimlico, or the Curse of
the Court," describing and lashing fearlessly the vices of the aristocracy; this book will
have a sale of at least 530,000; it will be on every table—in the boudoir of the pampered
duke, as in the chamber of the honest artisan. The myriads of foreigners who are coming to
London, and are anxious to know about our national manners, will purchase my book, and
carry it to their distant homes. So, Mr. Taylor, or Mr. Haberdasher, or Mr. Jeweller, how
much will you stand if I recommend you in my forthcoming novel?' You may make a noble
income in this way, Snooks.
"For instance, suppose it is an upholsterer. What more easy, what more delightful, than the
description of upholstery? As thus:—
"'Lady Emily was reclining on one of Down and Eider's voluptuous ottomans, the only
couch on which Belgravian beauty now reposes, when Lord Bathershins entered, stepping
noiselessly over one of Tomkins's elastic Axminster carpets. "Good heavens, my lord!" she
said—and the lovely creature fainted. The Earl rushed to the mantel-piece, where he saw a
flacon of Otto's eau-de-Cologne, and,' &c.
"Or say it's a cheap furniture-shop, and it may be brought in just as easily, as thus:—