Bouncer, feeling that Mr. Chaffanbrass
must have been ignorant indeed of the polite literature of the day to
make such a question necessary.
"You mean fiction."
"Well, yes; fiction,--if you like that word better."
"I don't like either, particularly. You have to find plots, haven't
you?"
Mr. Bouncer paused a moment. "Yes; yes," he said. "In writing a novel
it is necessary to construct a plot."
"Where do you get 'em from?"
"Where do I get 'em from?"
"Yes,--where do you find them? You take them from the French
mostly;--don't you?" Mr. Bouncer became very red. "Isn't that the way
our English writers get their plots?"
"Sometimes,--perhaps."
"Your's ain't French then?"
"Well;--no;--that is--I won't undertake to say that--that--"
"You won't undertake to say that they're not French."
"Is this relevant to the case before us, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked the
judge.
"Quite so, my lud. We have a highly-distinguished novelist before us,
my lud, who, as I have reason to believe, is intimately acquainted
with the French system of the construction of plots.
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