XI. MORTIMER HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GREAT PUBLISHER, AND MR. FLINT MAKES A DISCOVERY. - A Heaven for H. H. Hardwill, Publisher-Criminal Literature—Alliterative Titles Goldwood - Poor Authors them in the Perspective-Flint's Discovery, and the Horns of his Dilemma. MORTIMER looked up and read the sign-" H. H. Hard will, Publisher." His heart half-failed him, and he stood looking in the large, book-filled window, with that romance which was to startle the literary world folded quietly under his arm, like any common paper. What kind of a man is Mr. Hardwill? he thought. Is he a large man, with a heavy watchchain, or a thin, sky-rockety piece of humanity, dressed in black, and tipped off with red hair? Was he a cold, cast-iron man, like Flint? or a simple, sorrowful one, like Snarle that was? But this last idea melted of itself. publisher resemble the poor, How could the famous unobtrusive Snarle ? He, Mr. Hardwill, who received notes from the great Hiawatha, and hob-nobbed with Knickerbocker Irving; he, who owned a phial of yellow sand, which had been taken from a scorching desert with an unpronounceable name, and presented to him by the Oriental Bayard; he, who chatted with genial Mr. Sparrow-grass-God bless him!-(Sparrow-grass,) and joked with Orpheus Stoddard,—he like simple Snarle ? Pooh! "Is Mr. Hardwill in ?" asked Mortimer. He came near adding, "the great publisher." The clerk, to whom his eyes looked, said he believed he was, and went on calling off from a slip of paper: Murdered Milkmaid,' two copies; Bloody Hatchet,' twelve copies; The Seducer's Victim,' thirty copies; The Young Mother,' five copies; 'The Deranged Daughter,' seven copies; 'Hifiluten and other poems,' one copy." "Can I speak with him?" ventured Mortimer, as the clerk, who was calling off the criminal literature, paused for breath. "The Merry Maniacs,' ten copies-Yes, sir; but he's engaged. Wait awhile," continued the clerk, as Mortimer turned to go. "The Wizard of Wehaw kin,' six copies; 'The Phantom of Philadelphia,' twelve copies, etc., etc." So our author seated himself on a case of books, and looked at the wall of volumes which encompassed him. Somehow or another, it suggested the Great Wall of China and the Cordilleras. He could give no reason why. No more can I. Perlaps he felt that light literature, paradoxical as it may seem, is always heavy, and so his mind ran on the prodigious freaks of man and nature. After the clerk had finished calling off from the slip of paper, that promising young gentleman suddenly discovered that Mr. Hard will was not engaged, and offered to conduct our friend into his august presence. Mortimer gathered up his heart, as it were, and his loosened manuscript at the same moment" Her heart and morning broke together!" -and followed the clerk through an avenue of literature, to a snug inner office-that literary Sebastopol, which is forever being stormed by seedy poets and their allies, historians, romancers, and strong-minded Eves. Could it be possible? Was that middle-sized, dark-eyed, light-haired, pleasant-looking man the Napoleon of publishers? However, there was something shrewd in his dark eye, or rather eyes-for he had two of them-and a |