"You are certainly," said the editor, "a very original and enterprising young man and I have great pleasure in engaging you to enrich our sheet."
But when the paper came out the picture page was found to differ in no single respect from the other picture pages in the other dailies.
Nearly three years ago Mr. E. C. BENTLEY wrote an excellent detective story called _Trent's Last Case_. We now see amongst the latest literary announcements, _Bentley's Conscience_, by PAUL TRENT.
This retaliation prepares us for a whole series of recriminatory works of fiction. Among those shortly to be expected are the following:--
_The Delusions of Doyle_, by ANTHONY HOPE, and _Hope's Hallucinations_, by CONAN DOYLE.
_Hewlett's Downfall_, by G. K. CHESTERTON, and _Chesterton's Catastrophe_, by MAURICE HEWLETT.
_The Curse of Cain_, by MARIE CORELLI, and _Marie the Malevolent_, by HALL CAINE.
_Dexter Street_, by COMPTON MACKENZIE, and _The Meanderings of MacKenzie_, by G. S. STREET.
AN OLD-FASHIONED PLAYGOER VISITS A MODERN REVUE.
[Illustration: "Aha! Best seat in the house. Third row of stalls--next to gangway. I'm going to enjoy myself."
"I say--do you think you could change my stall for a quiet chair on the stage?"]
[Illustration: _First Clubwoman._ "I noticed you talking to that old bore. Did she get on to her ailments?"
_Second Clubwoman._ "Yes. You might almost call it an organ recital."]
After nine o'clock parade on that memorable morning the Sergeant-Major spoke to this effect: Though he, the Sergeant-Major, was new to the unit, he could and would make it plain that It Would Not Do. Had he taken up his duties in a dashed glee club or in a blanked choral society, he wanted to know? Though he had tried hard not to, he had been forced to admit that It was d----d disgraceful. He had never, he reflected aloud, seen anything like it during an active army existence that had provided many shocking sights. And he opined that there would be fatigues and C.B.s and court-martials and shootings-at-dawn if It continued. He was good, even for a Sergeant-Major.
The trouble was the hairs of the heads of the unit. And though he had rightly got the unit by the hairs which should have been short we felt it to be exceeding the limit on his part to refer to us as blanked musicians. Moreover, the band were most annoyed about it.