n folk of America--"shoddy" of course--dote on those accounts of
European toilets, which we never see given in any of our papers,
excepting where the appearance of the Queen's Drawing-Room may be
passingly noted; or, when the _Morning Post_ exhausts itself over a
"marriage in high life."

When my spurious intelligence was dated from London, I had to draw on a
fertile memory for popular rumours concerning revolutionary doctrine,
and express a conviction that things were not going very well with John
Bull, politically or socially, hinting, also, at the prospect of an
early Irish rebellion--and, generally, manufacture similar "news" of a
kind that is peculiarly grateful to the jaundiced palates of our
English-hating, jealousy-mad cousins over the way.

When Min came to know of this practice of mine, she did not like it.
She wrote to me to say that it was acting untruthfully to pretend to
correspond from a place when I was not actually there.

The habit was certainly reprehensible, I admit, as I admitted to her;
but, then, what can a writer do if blessed with a vivid imagination?

Besides, I had a precedent in Goldsmith's _Citizen of the World_, you
know; and, as Byron says--

"--After all, what is a lie? 'Tis but
The truth in masquerade; and I defy
Historians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to put
A fact without some leaven of a lie.
The very shadow of true truth would shut
Up annals, revelations, poesy,
And prophecy--except it should be dated
Some years before the incidents related."

Even on this side of the water, too, authors have frequently to use
their pens as if they did not chance to possess a conscience--one of the
worst possessions for any aspirant in the journalistic profession to be
encumbered with, I may remark by the way!

You seem to be astonished at my observation? I will explain what I mean
more lucidly.

Supposing a journalist belongs to a Conservative organ, he must back up
the party, don't you see, at all hazards; and, although in his inmost
heart he may have a faint suspicion that Mr Disraeli's popularity is on
the wane, it will not do for him to write his leading articles to that
effect exactly, eh? Oh, dear no! He has to assert, on the contrary,
that "the masses" are loudly calling on _Punch's_ friend "Dizzy" to save
England from the utter extinguishment predicted by our dear Bismarck the
other day at Versailles! While, should your potent pressman, on the
other hand, wield