urth Officer has at last
exhausted his supplies of facts, and will now no doubt fall back on
reserves of fiction; which, judged from this sample, are probably very
extensive. Though few mariners turn novelists, yet it is significant, as
showing the great bond of union between seafaring life and pure
imagination, that those who have done so can point to most gratifying
results.

[Illustration: "'PROBABLY I AM BETTER QUALIFIED TO DISCUSS IT THAN ANY
OF YOU.'"]

[Illustration: I. ZANGWILL.]

_My First Book._

BY I. ZANGWILL.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON.

-----

As it is scarcely two years since my name (which, I hear, is a _nom de
plume_) appeared in print on the cover of a book, I may be suspected of
professional humour when I say I really do not know which was my first
book. Yet such is the fact. My literary career has been so queer that I
find it not easy to write my autobibliography.

"What is a pound?" asked Sir Robert Peel in an interrogative mood futile
as Pilate's. "What is a book?" I ask, and the dictionary answers with
its usual dogmatic air, "A collection of sheets of paper, or similar
material, blank, written, or printed, bound together." At this rate my
first book would be that romance of school life in two volumes, which,
written in a couple of exercise books, circulated gratuitously in the
schoolroom, and pleased our youthful imaginations with teacher-baiting
tricks we had not the pluck to carry out in the actual. I shall always
remember this story because, after making the tour of the class, it was
returned to me with thanks and a new first page from which all my graces
of style had evaporated. Indignant enquiry discovered the criminal--he
admitted he had lost the page, and had rewritten it from memory. He
pleaded that it was better written (which in one sense was true), and
that none of the facts had been omitted.

This ill-treated tale was "published" when I was ten, but an old
schoolfellow recently wrote to me reminding me of an earlier novel
written in an old account book. Of this I have no recollection, but, as
he says he wrote it day by day at my dictation, I suppose he ought to
know. I am glad to find I had so early achieved the distinction of
keeping an amanuensis.

The dignity of print I achieved not much later, contributing verses and
virtuous essays to various juvenile organs. But it was not till I was
eighteen that I achieved a printed first book. The story