and now we know at last just what kind of a novelist you would have
been."

"Don't you believe it," said the Critic, "That was only
improvisatore--that's no sample."

"Ho, ho! I'll bet you anything that the manuscript is up in your
trunk, and that you have been committing it to memory ever since this
idea was proposed," said the Doctor, still laughing.

"No, _that_ I deny," replied the Critic, "but as I am no _poseur_, I
will own that I wrote it years ago, and rewrote it so often that I
never could forget it. I'll confess more than that, the story has been
'declined with thanks' by every decent magazine in the States and in
England. Now perhaps some one will tell me why."

"I don't know the answer," said the Youngster, seriously, "unless it
is 'why not?'"

"I shouldn't wonder if it were sentimental twaddle," sighed the
Journalist, "but I don't _know_."

"I noticed," expostulated the Critic, "that you all listened,
enthralled."

"Oh," replied the Doctor, "that was a tribute to your personal charm.
You did it very well."

"Exactly," said the Critic, "if editors would let me read them my
stories, I could sell them like hot cakes. I never believed that Homer