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278 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
would have liked to have the lives of one or two troops at least
of that corps. Entering into Mr. Cassidy's room, Philip found the
little volume. He set to work to exterminate Canterton. He
rode him down, trampled over his face and carcase, knocked the
" Trumpet Calls" and all the teeth down the trumpeter's throat.
Never was such a smashing article as he wrote. And Mugford, Mr.
Cassidy's chief and owner, who likes always to have at least one
man served up and hashed small in the Pall Mall Gazette, happened
at this very juncture to have no other victim ready in his larder.
Philip's review appeared there in print. He rushed off with
immense glee to Westminster, to show us his performance. Nothing
must content him but to give a dinner at Greenwich on his success.
Oh, Philip ! We wished that this had not been his first fee ; and
that sober law had given it to him, and not the graceless and fickle
muse with whom he had been flirting. For, truth to say, certain
wise old heads which wagged over his performance could see but little
merit in it. His style was coarse, his wit clumsy and savage. Never
mind characterising either now. He has seen the error of his ways,
and divorced with the muse whom ho never ought to have wooed.
The shrewd Cassidy not only could not write himself, but knew
he could not—or, at least, pen more than a plain paragraph, or a
brief sentence to the point, but said he would carry this paper to
his chief. "His Excellency" was the nickname by which this
chief was called by his familiars. Mugford—Frederick Mugford
was his real name—and putting out of sight that little defect in his
character, that he committed a systematic literary murder once a
week, a more worthy good-natured little murderer did not live. He
came of the old school of the press. Like French marshals, he had
risen from the ranks, and retained some of the manners and oddities
of the private soldier. A new race of writers had grown up since
he enlisted as a printer's boy—men of the world, with the manners
of other gentlemen. Mugford never professed the least gentility.
He knew that his young men laughed at his peculiarities, and did
not care a fig for their scorn. As the knife with which he conveyed
his victuals to his mouth went down his throat at the plenteous
banquets which he gave, he saw his young friends wince and
wonder, and rather relished their surprise. Those lips never cared
in the least about placing his h's in right places. They used bad
language with great freedom—(to hear him bullying a printing-office
was a wonder of eloquence)—but they betrayed no secrets, and the
words which they uttered you might trust. He had belonged to
two or three parties, and had respected them all. When he went
to the Under-Secretary's office he was never kept waiting ; and
once or twice Mrs. Mugford, who governed him, ordered him to