at trembled in his voice as he began:

_"Huge steel-ribbed monsters rise into the air
Her Babylonian towers, while on high,
Like gilt-scaled serpents, glide the swift trains by,
Or, underfoot, creep to their secret lair.
A thousand lights are jewels in her hair,
The sea her girdle, and her crown the sky;
Her life-blood throbs, the fevered pulses fly.
Immense, defiant, breathless she stands there.

"And ever listens in the ceaseless din,
Waiting for him, her lover, who shall come,
Whose singing lips shall boldly claim their own,
And render sonant what in her was dumb,
The splendour, and the madness, and the sin,
Her dreams in iron and her thoughts of stone."_

He paused. The boat glided on. For a long time neither spoke a word.

After a while Jack broke the silence: "And are you dreaming of becoming
the lyric mouth of the city, of giving utterance to all its yearnings,
its 'dreams in iron and its thoughts of stone'?"

"No," replied Ernest, simply, "not yet. It is strange to what
impressions the brain will respond. In Clarke's house, in the midst of
inspiring things, inspiration failed me. But while I was with that girl
an idea came to me--an idea, big, real."

"Will it deal with her?"

Ernest smiled: "Oh, no. She personally has nothing to do with it. At
least not directly. It was the commotion of blood and--brain. The
air--the change. I don't know what."

"What will it be?" asked Jack, with interest all alert.

"A play, a wonderful play. And its heroine will be a princess, a little
princess, with a yellow veil."

"What of the plot?"

"That I shall not tell you to-day. In fact, I shall not breathe a word
to any one. It will take you all by surprise--and the public by storm."

"So it will be playable?"

"If I am not very much mistaken, you will see it on Broadway within a
year. And," he added graciously, "I will let you have two box-seats for
the first night."

They both chuckled at the thought, and their hearts leaped within them.

"I hope you will finish it soon," Jack observed after a while. "You
haven't done much of late."

"A similar reflection was on my mind when you came yesterday. That
accounts for the low spirits in which you found me."

"Ah, indeed," Jack replied, measuring Ernest with a look of wonder. "But
now your face is aglow. It seems that the blood rushes to your head
swifter at the call of an idea than at the kiss of a gi