'I trust it is severe.

I know no man who wants a dragging over the coals more peremptorily than you do.' 'Thankee, sir.

Well, grandmamma, go on; but if there be anything very bad, give me a little notice, for I am nervous.' And then Mrs.Woodward began to read, Linda sitting with Katie's baby in her arms, and Katie performing a similar office for her sister.
"'The World's Last Wonder,' by Charles Tudor, Esq." 'He begins with a lie,' said Charley, 'for I never called myself Esquire.' 'Oh, that was a mistake,' said Katie, forgetting herself.
'Men of that kind shouldn't make such mistakes,' said Charley.
'When one fellow attempts to cut up another fellow, he ought to take special care that he does it fairly.' "By the author of 'Bathos.'" 'I didn't put that in,' said Charley, 'that was the publisher.

I only put Charles Tudor.' 'Don't be so touchy, Charley, and let me go on,' said Mrs.
Woodward.
'Well, fire away--it's good fun to you, I dare say, as the fly said to the spider.' 'Well, Charley, at any rate we are not the spiders,' said Linda.
Katie said nothing, but she could not help feeling that she must look rather spiderish.
'Mr.Tudor has acquired some little reputation as a humorist, but as is so often the case with those who make us laugh, his very success will prove his ruin.' 'Then upon my word the _Daily Delight_ is safe,' said Charley.

'It will never be ruined in that way.' 'There is an elaborate jocosity about him, a determined eternity of most industrious fun, which gives us the idea of a boy who is being rewarded for having duly learnt by rote his daily lesson out of Joe Miller.' 'Now, I'll bet ten to one he has never read the book at all--well, never mind--go on.' "'The World's Last Wonder' is the description of a woman who kept a secret under certain temptations to reveal it, which, as Mr.
Tudor supposes, might have moved any daughter of Eve to break her faith." 'I haven't supposed anything of the kind,' said Charley.
'This secret, which we shall not disclose, as we would not wish to be thought less trustworthy than Mr.Tudor's wonderful woman--' 'We shall find that he does disclose it, of course; that is the way with all of them.' -- 'Is presumed to permeate the whole three volumes.' 'It is told at full length in the middle of the second,' said Charley.
'And the effect upon the reader of course is, that he has ceased to interest himself about it, long before it is disclosed to him! 'The lady in question is engaged to be married to a gentleman, a circumstance which in the pages of a novel is not calculated to attract much special attention.