iginator,
special terms. As to photographs, I will sign every copy, and take
twopence on every copy. I'm a little pressed for time now, so if you
can manage it, we will defer the visit for a week or two, and then I'm
your man.

Yours truly,

BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.

_MR. A. SOPHTE SOPER TO THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS._

MY DEAR BARON,--I'm afraid I didn't quite make myself understood. I
did not ask _you_ to write the article, being commissioned by the
firm to do it myself. The photographs will not be sold apart from
the Magazine. Awaiting your favourable response,--

I am, Sir, Yours,

A. SOPHTE SOPER.

_FROM THE BARON TO A. SOPHTE SOPER._

DEAR SIR,--I _quite_ understood. With the generous view of doing me a
good turn by giving me the almost inestimable advantage of advertising
myself in Messrs. TOWERS & Co.'s widely-circulated Magazine, you
propose to interview me, and receive from me such orally given
information as you may require concerning my life, history, work, and
everything about myself which, in your opinion, would interest the
readers of this Magazine. I quite appreciate all this. You propose to
write the article, _and I'm to find you the materials for it_. Good. I
don't venture to put any price on the admirable work which your talent
will produce,--that's for you and your publishers to settle between
you, and, as a matter of fact, it has been already settled, as you
are in their employ. But I _can_ put a price on my own, and I do. I
collaborate with you in furnishing all the materials of which you are
in need. _Soit._ For the use of my Pegasus, no matter what its breed,
and, as it isn't a gift-horse, but a hired one, you can examine its
mouth and legs critically whenever you are going to mount and guide it
at your own sweet will, _I charge twenty guineas for the first hour_,
and _ten for the second_. It may be dear, or it may be cheap. That's
not my affair. _C'est a laisser ou a prendre._

The Magazine in which the article is to appear is not given away
with a pound of tea, or anything of that sort I presume, so that your
strictly honourable and business-like firm of employers, and you also,
Sir, in the regular course of your relations with them, intend making
something out of me, more or less, but something, while I get nothing
at all for my time, which is decidedly as valuable to me as, I
presume, is yours to you. What have your publishers ever done for me
that I should give them my work for nothing