alas! where was the money
to come from? They didn't need much--for it is wonderful how happy you
can be on five shillings, if you only know how. At the same time it is
difficult to be happy on ninepence--which was the entire fortune of the
lovers at the moment. Beauty laughingly suggested that her celebrated
hair might prove worth the price of their dinner. The poet thought a
pawnbroker might surely be found to advance ten shillings on his
poem--the original MS. too,--else had they nothing to pawn, save a few
gold and silver dreams which they couldn't spare. What was to be done?
Sell some books, of course! It made them shudder to think how many poets
they had eaten in this fashion. It was sheer cannibalism--but what was
to be done? Their slender stock of books had been reduced entirely to
poetry. If there had only been a philosopher or a modern novelist, the
sacrifice wouldn't have seemed so unnatural. And then Beauty's eyes fell
upon a very fat informing-looking volume on the poet's desk.

'Wouldn't this do?' she said.

'Why, of course!' he exclaimed; 'the very thing. A new history of
socialism just sent me for review. Hang the review; we want our dinner,
don't we, little one? And then I've read the preface, and looked through
the index--quite enough to make a column of, with a plentiful supply of
general principles thrown in! Why, of course, there's our dinner for
certain, dull and indigestible as it looks. It's worth fifty minor poets
at old Moser's. Come along....'

So off went the happy pair--ah! how much happier was Beauty than ever so
many fine ladies one knows who have only, so to say, to rub their
wedding-rings for a banquet to rise out of the ground, with the most
distinguished guests around the table, champagne of the best, and
conversation of the worst.

Old Moser found histories of socialism profitable, more profitable
perhaps than socialism, and he actually gave five-and-sixpence for the
volume. With the ninepence already in their pockets, you will see that
they were now possessors of quite a small fortune. Six-and-threepence!
It wouldn't pay for one's lunch nowadays. Ah! but that is because the
poor alone know the art of dining.

You needn't wish to be happier and merrier than those two lovers, as
they gaily hastened to that bright and cosy corner of the town where
those lovely ham-and-beef shops make glad the faces of the passers-by. O
those hams with their honest shining faces, polished like mahoga