THE SIBYLLINE FLY-LEAF. 21 



of the room, and then rushed desperately to the corner cup- 

 board, the sole lurking place left unexplored. " Buz ! buz ! 

 buz !" again rose, as if in mockery at the very thought. He 

 returned hopeless to his chair : perhaps it was fancy after all, 

 but presently the Fly's voice rose louder still, closer than ever, 

 to repeat " buz ! buz ! buz !" 



The Faster at last betook himself, with what appetite he 

 might, to his rigid loaf, his melting butter. He cuts a slice, 

 he proceeds to unfold the printed leaf wherein the dissolving 

 condiment lay curtained. But not alone lay that butter in its 

 melting luxury; a ravisher had been feasting on its charms, 

 and now, out he bounces with a buz indeed, and buz! buz!! 

 buz !!! re-echoes round, as a burly Blue-bottle, tipsy with love 

 and jollity, mad at escape from thraldom, or merry at discovery, 

 bangs up and bounces again and again against the unopened 

 half of the garret casement. 



The mystery is out ; yet the Poet stands aghast, fixed as in 

 a stupor of horror and dismay. He scarcely notices the 

 escaped offender; the buz of Blue-bottle now falls unheeded on 

 his ear ; the bouncings of Blue-bottle attract not his eye, for 

 his eye is strained on more appalling objects, on the printed 

 envelope of rancid butter, on the title-page of his first inde- 

 pendent and avowed production, on his own dishonoured 

 name conspicuous in the transparency of grease ! This, then, 

 was the publicity acquired by his first great work, and there, 

 torn from its very self, was the sibylline leaf, which had told, 

 in the warning buz of that prophetic Fly, the coming fate of 

 his second, his still greater work, so laboured, so exquisitely 

 finished. Finished ! it is finished, indeed, with hope, with 

 effort ! So spoke more plainly than could words the deep 



drawn sigh with which poor H resumed his seat, not, 



we may be sure, to taste his ill-savoured bread and butter, 

 but only to sip his cold tea, as if to swallow down with it 

 something of chagrin, or to sip in something of consolation. 



