t much to himself, sitting
wrapped up in his chair, gazing with a tired-out look at the green
ocean.

A young girl often sat in the chair beside him, ostensibly reading,
but more often glancing sympathetically at the wan figure beside her.
Frequently she seemed about to speak to him, but apparently hesitated
about doing so, for the man took no notice of his fellow-passengers.
At length, however, she mustered up courage to address him, and said:
"There is a good story in this magazine--perhaps you would like to
read it."

He turned his eyes from the sea, and rested them vacantly upon her
face for a moment. His dark mustache added to the pallor of his face,
but did not conceal the faint smile that came to his lips; he had
heard her but had not understood.

"What did you say?" he asked gently.

"I said there was a good story here entitled 'Author, Author!' and I
thought you might like to read it;" and the girl blushed very prettily
as she said this, for the man looked younger than he had before he
smiled.

"I am not sure," said the man slowly, "that I have not forgotten how
to read. It is a long time since I have seen a book or a magazine.
Won't you tell me the story? I would much rather hear it from you than
make the attempt to read it myself in the magazine."

"Oh," she cried breathlessly, "I'm not sure that I could tell it--at
any rate, not as well as the author tells it; but I will read it to
you if you like."

The story was about a man who had written a play, and who thought, as
every playwright thinks, that it was a great addition to the drama,
and would bring him fame and fortune. He took this play to a London
manager, but heard nothing from it for a long time, and at last it was
returned to him. Then, on going to a first night at the theatre to see
a new tragedy which this manager called his own, he was amazed to see
his rejected play, with certain changes, produced upon the stage; and
when the cry arose for "Author, Author!" he rose in his place; but
illness and privation had done their work, and he died proclaiming
himself the author of the play.

"Ah," said the man when the reading was finished, "I cannot tell you
how much the story has interested me. I once was an actor myself, and
anything pertaining to the stage interests me, although it is years
since I saw a theatre. It must be hard luck to work for fame and then
be cheated out of it, as was the man in the tale; but I suppose it
sometimes happen