r it?"

"No."

"Then I suppose I don't. Bother."

"But you've only got to knock the red in for game."

"Oh!.... There, what's that?"

"That's a miscue. I get one."

"Oh!.... Oh well," she added magnanimously, "I'm glad you've started
scoring. It will make it more interesting for you."

There was just room to creep in off the red, leaving it still over the
pocket. With Celia's ball nicely over the other pocket there was a
chance of my twenty break. "Let's see," I said, "how many do I want?"

"Twenty-nine," replied Celia.

"Ah," I said.... and I crept in.

"That's three to you," I said icily.
"Game."

A. A. M.

* * * * *

OUR READY WRITERS.

The astonishing rapidity attained by Mr. WALTER MELVILLE in the
composition of his plays as revealed in the evidence given in court last
week has suggested an appeal to other leading authors for information as
to their rate of production. We append the results herewith:--

Mr. MAX PEMBERTON observed that the speed of composition varied with the
literary quality of the work produced. Personally he found that by far
the most laborious and protracted mental effort was entailed in the
writing of _Revues_. He had calculated that the amount of brain force he
had spent on his last masterpiece was fully as large as that expended by
GIBBON on his monumental _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_. In evidence of the strain he added the following interesting
statistics. He had worn out thirteen of the costliest gold-nibbed
fountain pens; seven expert typists had been so exhausted that they had
to undergo a rest-cure; and finally he himself had consumed no fewer
than nineteen seven-and-sixpenny bottles of Blunker's Sanguinogen.

Sir EDWIN DURNING-LAWRENCE, Bart., poohpoohed the notion that the
moderns were more rapid producers than their forefathers. As the result
of his investigations he had conclusively proved that BACON was an
infinitely more rapid producer than any living author. His time-table
worked out as follows. BACON wrote _Chaucer_ in a little less than three
weeks. He completed the _Faerie Queene_ in one sitting, allowing for
refreshments, of seventy-four hours. The Plays of SHAKSPEARE occupied
him from first to last not more than ten months. _Montaigne_ was dashed
off in just a fortnight, while _Beaumont and Fletcher_, _Marlowe_,
_Greene_, _Webster_ and _Ben Jonson_ took him exactly 37-1/2 days. Next
to SHAKSPEARE'S