"Oh yes, I do--for cake and tea, among other things, and here it comes. Make a rhyme on it, Ferdy."

"Don't call me Ferdy," said Priggs sharply.

"Then Birdie," observed Dick, in a teasing tone, "though you're more like an owl than any other bird."

"Now don't fight," said Pumpkin, who was now seated in front of a rustic table on which the tea-things were set out. "Milk and sugar, Mr. Beaumont?"

"Both, thank you," said Beaumont, bending forward. "By-the-way, I saw Miss Challoner today--we were talking about you, Blake."

"Were you indeed?" observed Reginald, rather irritated at the free and easy manner of the speaker.

"Yes--about your voice. I got a letter from a friend of mine in Town, of which I will tell you later on."

"I suppose Reggy will be leaving us all for London soon," said Dick enviously.

"Lucky Reginald," sighed Ferdinand, "I wish I were going to London."

"What, with a bundle of poems in your pocket?" said Reginald laughing. "I'm afraid you wouldn't set the Thames on fire--poetry doesn't pay."

"Nor literature of any sort," observed Dick, "at least, so I understand."

"Then you understand wrong," said Beaumont coolly, "you go by Scott's saying, I presume--that literature is a good staff but a bad crutch--all that is altered now."

"Not as regards poetry."

"No--not as regards poetry certainly, but success in literature greatly depends on the tact of a writer; if a young man goes to London with a translation of Horace or Lucian in his pocket he will find his goods are not wanted; if Milton went to Paternoster Row at the present time, with the MS. of 'Paradise Lost' in his hand, I don't believe he would find a publisher. We talk a great deal of noble poems and beautiful thoughts, but it's curious what unsaleable articles even the best of them are."

"Then what does sell?" asked Ferdinand."But from what I hear there are so few good local playwrights," said Dick quickly.

"And whose fault is that?" asked Beaumont acidly, "but the fault of the English 

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