all the rhymes in the language that are fit to go with it without naming them. I have tried them all so many times, I know all the polygamous words and all the monogamous ones, and all the unmarrying ones,—the whole lot that have no mates,—as soon as I hear their names called. Sometimes I run over a string of rhymes, but generally speaking it is strange what a short list it is of those that are good for anything. That is the pitiful side of all rhymed verse. Take two such words as home and world. What can you do with chrome or loam or gnome or tome? You have dome, foam, and roam, and not much more to use in your pome, as some of our fellow-countrymen call it. As for world, you know that in all human probability somebody or something will be hurled into it or out of it; its clouds may be furled or its grass impearled; possibly something may be whirled, or curled, or have swirled, one of Leigh Hunt's words, which with lush, one of Keats's, is an important part of the stock in trade of some dealers in rhyme.
—And how much do you versifiers know of all those arts and sciences you refer to as if you were as familiar with them as a cobbler is with his wax and lapstone?
—Enough not to make too many mistakes. The best way is to ask some expert before one risks himself very far in illustrations from a branch he does not know much about. Suppose, for instance, I wanted to use the double star to illustrate anything, say the relation of two human souls to each other, what would I—do? Why, I would ask our young friend there to let me look at one of those loving celestial pairs through his telescope, and I don't doubt he'd let me do so, and tell me their names and all I wanted to know about them.
—I should be most happy to show any of the double stars or whatever else there might be to see in the heavens to any of our friends at this table,—the young man said, so cordially and kindly that it was a real invitation.
—Show us the man in the moon,—said That Boy.—I should so like to see a double star!—said Scheherezade, with a very pretty air of smiling modesty.
—Will you go, if we make up a party?—I asked the Master.
—A cold in the head lasts me from three to five days,—answered the Master.—I am not so very fond of being out in the dew like
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