"Bill Whalley! who is he?" asked Bristles with a sneer.
"Son of the old Tom Noddy you make such a precious fool of."
"Mr Whalley of the Boro' is _our_ friend, Mr Sidsby--a man of the profoundest judgment and most capacious understanding. I doubt whether a greater judge of merit ever existed than Mr Whalley of the Boro'."
"Hear hear!" again resounded; and Mr Sidsby, shaking his head, said no more, but looked as sulky as his naturally good-tempered features would let him.
"And now, Stickleback," said Mr Bristles--"I am happy to tell you your fortune is made; your fame will rise higher and higher."
A little dark-complexioned man with very large mouth and very flat nose, looked a little disdainful at this speech, which to any one else would have sounded like a compliment.
"I always knew that merit such as I felt I possessed, would force its way, in spite of envy and detraction," he said.
"We have an uphill fight of it, I assure you," rejoined Mr Bristles; "but by dint of throwing it on pretty thick, we are in hopes some of it will stick."
"Now, Mr Bristles," resumed the artist, "I don't at all like the style you talk in to me. You always speak as if my reputation had been made by your praises. Now, talents such as mine"--
"Are very high, my good sir; no one who reads the _Universal_ doubts that fact for a moment."
"Talents, I say, such as mine," pursued Mr Stickleback, "were sure to raise me to the highest honours; and it is too bad for you to claim all the merit of my success."
"Not I; but all our friends here," said Bristles. "For two years we have done nothing but praise you wherever we went. Haven't we sneered at Bailey, and laughed at the ancient statues? Who wrote the epigram on Thorwaldsen--was it not our friend now present, Mr Banks? a gentleman, I must say, perfectly unequaled in the radiance of his wit and the delicious pungency of his satire. Without us, what would you have been?"
"Exactly what I am. The only sculptor worth a sixpence since the fine arts were invented," replied the self-satisfied Mr Stickleback.
"No," said Mr Bristles; "since you force us to tell you what we have done for you, I will mention it. We have persuaded all our friends, we have even persuaded yourself, that you have some knowledge of sculpture; whereas every one who follows his own judgment, and is not led astray by our puffs, must see that you could not carve an old woman's face out of a radish; that you are fit for nothing with the chisel but to smooth gravestones, and cut crying cherubs over a churchyard door; that your donkey"--