ords of wisdom, of experience. "The world would never listen to
you. Once a humourist always a humourist. As well might a comic actor
insist upon playing Hamlet. It might be the best Hamlet ever seen upon
the stage; the audience would only laugh--or stop away."

Drawn by our mutual need of sympathy, "Goggles" and I, seeking some
quiet corner in the Club, would pour out our souls to each other.
He would lay before me, at some length, his conception of Romeo--an
excellent conception, I have no doubt, though I confess it failed to
interest me. Somehow I could not picture him to myself as Romeo. But I
listened with every sign of encouragement. It was the price I paid
him for, in turn, listening to me while I unfolded to him my ideas how
monumental literature, helpful to mankind, should be imagined and built
up.

"Perhaps in a future existence," laughed Goggles, one evening, rising as
the clock struck seven, "I shall be a great tragedian, and you a famous
poet. Meanwhile, I suppose, as your friend Brian puts it, we are both
sinning our mercies. After all, to live is the most important thing in
life."

I had strolled with him so far as the cloak-room and was helping him to
get into his coat.

"Take my advice"--tapping me on the chest, he fixed his funny, fishy
eyes upon me. Had I not known his intention to be serious, I should have
laughed, his expression was so comical. "Marry some dear little woman"
(he was married himself to a placid lady of about twice his own weight);
"one never understands life properly till the babies come to explain it
to one."

I returned to my easy-chair before the fire. Wife, children, home!
After all, was not that the true work of man--of the live man, not the
dreamer? I saw them round me, giving to my life dignity, responsibility.
The fair, sweet woman, helper, comrade, comforter, the little faces
fashioned in our image, their questioning voices teaching us the answers
to life's riddles. All other hopes, ambitions, dreams, what were they?
Phantoms of the morning mist fading in the sunlight.

Hodgson came to me one evening. "I want you to write me a comic opera,"
he said. He had an open letter in his hand which he was reading. "The
public seem to be getting tired of these eternal translations from the
French. I want something English, something new and original."

"The English is easy enough," I replied; "but I shouldn't clamour for
anything new and original if I were you."

"Why not?" h