_A._ Certainly, or I shouldn't live at all.

_Q._ Which do you prefer--a story produced in parts, or a story published as a whole?

_A._ Again a question of terms. Still, if remuneration is equal, sketches of character are easier than construction of plot.

_Q._ When is the latter necessary?

_A._ When the novel is written for a serial, and is published with the standing announcement (frequently repeated), "to be continued in our next."

_Q._ Is it difficult to sketch character?

_A._ Not if you do not mind irritating your friends and driving your foes into lunacy.

_Q._ How do you irritate your friends?

_A._ By reproducing in an amusing manner their peculiarities.

_Q._ And how do you madden your foes?

_A._ By pa.s.sing them over in a dead silence, and sternly refusing to recognise their existence.

_Q._ How should you treat your contemporaries?

_A._ If you appreciate your work at its proper (that is to say, your _own_) value, you will not admire contemporaries.

_Q._ And what will you say of authors of the past?

_A._ That it is fortunate that they did live in the past, as they certainly do not exist in the present, and will certainly not revive in the future.

_Q._ How should you criticise a contemporary's novel?

_A._ If you are sure of his influencing a criticism of your own work favourably, praise his romance sky high. If he is, from a reviewer's point of view, a negligable quant.i.ty, why, treat him on that basis.

_Q._ Then what is your motto?

_A._ "Nothing for nothing."

_Q._ Do you consider a novelist's life the best possible form of existence?

_A._ I should say yes if I did not know of a form of existence to be even better.

_Q._ And what is that?

_A._ Inheriting a fortune, putting your hands in your pockets, and for the rest of your life doing nothing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PREHISTORIC PEEPS.

A LITTLE COVERT SHOOTING. (DRAGONS PLENTIFUL, AND STRONG ON THE WING.)]

AMARE, O!

(_By an Usher._)

With weary brain I hear again The drowsy urchins stammer, O, From _mensa_ down through every noun That's in the Latin grammar, O!

And when declensions pall, why then, The exercise to vary, O, I bid them show how well they know My sweet, sweet verb, _Amare_, O!

"_Amo_, _amas_,--I love a la.s.s,"

Her dainty name is NANCY, O, And none but she shall ever be The darling of my fancy, O!

_Amavi_--well, in love I fell, And sure 'twas no vagary, O, For since that day I've learnt the way To conjugate _Amare_, O!

I whisper now, "_Ama_, Love thou!"

Amongst the fields of barley, O, And NANCE replies, with br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes, "I love, I love thee, CHARLIE, O!"

_Amo_, _ama_, the livelong day I'll teach my winsome fairy, O, For has not she resolved with me To conjugate _Amare_, O?

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAUTION.

_The Major._ "DON'T YOU LIKE LIQUEURS, MRS. JINKS?"

_Mrs. Jinks._ "YES; BUT THEY MAKE ONE SO _UNRESERVED_!"]

AD JOVEM PLUVIUM.

["Ju Plu has been in his best form lately."--_Sporting Paper._]

ENGLAND farewell, when showers of rain From dewy eve to dawn pour, I fly across the heaving main To Aden or to Cawnpore.

The deep floods hide my native land, No more as land I rank it, I envy on some foreign strand The brown man in his blanket.

Through sandy deserts he may roam, But bright suns shine for him there, And if he wants to reach his home He never has to swim there.

There would I dwell, away, away I fly, these floods disdaining, Where Jupiter can rule the day Without a thought of raining.