e noted that the
Dialogue was unrelated to Real Literature and the Verses lacked
Metrical Symmetry.

It would be a Pipe for a sure-enough Bard to sit down on a Rainy
Afternoon and grind out something that might serve as a Model for Harry
B. Smith.

So he had a Vase of Fresh Flowers put on his Desk every Day, and he
would sit there, waiting for the Muse to keep her Date.

At the end of a Month he had it all planned to lay the First Scene in
front of a Palace with a Forest on the Back Drop so as to get a lot of
Atmosphere.

There was to be a Princess in the Thing, and a Picture of the long-lost
Mother in the Locket and other New Stuff.

He put in Hours and Hours hand-embroidering the Verses.

When he made "Society" rhyme with "Propriety," he thought he was
getting Gilbertian.

While these Lyrics were still quivering, he would take them out and
read them to his wife and the Hired Girl and the man who attended to
the Furnace, and get their Impartial Judgement.

They agreed that it was Hot Gravy and too good for the Stage.

Encouraged by these heart-felt Encomiums, he would hike back to the
Study, shoot himself in the Arm with a hypothetical Needle, and once
more begin picking Grapes in Arcady.

When People came to the House, not knowing that he had been taken down
with anything, he would own up that he was working on a Mere Trifle,
and then, after being sufficiently urged, he would give a Reading.

These Readings could have been headed off only by an Order of Court or
calling out the State Guard.

Inasmuch as the large-size Carnegie Medal for Heroism is waiting for
the Caller who has the immortal Rind to tell a poetical Pest that his
output is Punk, the Author found himself smeared with Compliments after
each of these parlor Try-Outs.

They kidded him into thinking that he had incubated a Whale.

When he had chewed up a Gross of Pencils and taken enough Tea to float
the Imperator, the great Work was complete and ready to be launched
with a loud Splash.

He began to inquire the Name of some prominent Theatre Blokie who was a
keen Student of the Classics and a Person of super-refined Taste.
The man he sought had moved into the Poor House, so he compromised by
expressing his typewritten Masterpiece to a Ringmaster whose name he
had seen on the Three Sheets. It was marked, "Valuable Package."
In a few months the hirelings of the Company and the Driver of the
Wagon became well acquainted with the Large Envel