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494 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
any matter of attachment to a woman, and all the fathers in the
world won't stop you. In Philip of four-and-twenty I recognise his
father thirty years ago. My father scolded, entreated, quarrelled
with me, never forgave me. I will learn to be more generous
towards my son. I may grieve, but I bear you no malice. If ever
I achieve wealth again, you shall not be deprived of it. I suffered
so myself from a harsh father, that I will never be one to my son !
"As you have put on the livery of the Muses, and regularly
entered yourself of the Fraternity of the Press, what say you to a
little addition to your income by letters addressed to my friend, the
editor of the new journal, called here the Gazette of the Upper Ten
Thousand ? It is the fashionable journal published here ; and your
qualifications are precisely those which would make your services
valuable as a contributor. Doctor Geraldine, the editor, is not, I
believe, a relative of the Leinster family, but a self-made man, who
arrived in this country some years since, poor, and an exile from
his native country. He advocates Repeal politics in Ireland ; but
with these of course you need have nothing to do. And he is much
too liberal to expect these from his contributors. I have been of
service professionally to Mrs. Geraldine and himself. My friend of
the Emerald introduced me to the Doctor. Terrible enemies in
print, in private they are perfectly good friends, and the little
passages of arms between the two journalists serve rather to amuse
than to irritate. ' The grocer's boy from Ormond Quay' (Geraldine
once, it appears, engaged in that useful but humble calling), and
the ' miscreant from Cork'—the editor of the Emerald comes from
that city—assail each other in public, but drink whisky-and-water
galore in private. If you write for Geraldine, of course you will say
nothing disrespectful about grocers' boys. His dollars are good
silver, of that you may be sure. Dr. G. knows a part of your
history: he knows that you are now fairly engaged in literary
pursuits ; that you are a man of education, a gentleman, a man of
the world, a man of courage. I have answered for your possessing
all these qualities. (The Doctor, in his droll humorous way, said
that if you were a chip of the old block you would be just what he
called ' the grit.') Political treatises are not so much wanted as
personal news regarding the notabilities of London, and these, I
assured him, you were the very man to be able to furnish. You,
who know everybody ; who have lived with the great world—the
world of lawyers, the world of artists, the world of the University—
have already had an experience which few gentlemen of the press
can boast of, and may turn that experience to profit. Suppose you
were to trust a little to your imagination in composing these letters?
there can be no harm in being poetical. Suppose an intelligent