ve riches
And a house in Eaton Place ....

(Here all the audience pulls out its handkerchief)

I haven't a doubt that you must be
The properest possible match for me,
But I DON'T LIKE--your FACE."

I have got another verse to this song, but I will not give it to you
now, as I think the Editor is rather bored with it. It is fortunate
for Mr. Bubble that he does not have to perform before an audience of
Editors.

Having written the lyric the next thing to do is to get a composer
to compose music for it and then you get it published. This is most
difficult, as composers are people who don't ever keep appointments,
and music publishers like locking up lyrics in drawers till the mice
have got at the chorus and the whole thing is out of date.

By the time that this song is ready Mr. Bubble may quite possibly have
exhausted the _face-motif_ altogether and struck a new vein. Then we
shall have wasted our labour. In that case we will arrange to have it
buried in somebody's grave (Mr. Bubble's for choice), and in 2000 A.D.
it will be dug up by antiquaries and deciphered. Even a lyric like
this may become an Old Manuscript in time. I ought to add that I
myself have composed the music for this lyric, but I really cannot
undertake to explain composing as well as poetry.

The serious lyric or Queen's Hall Ballad is a much easier affair. But
I must first warn the student that there are some peculiar
customs attaching to this traffic which may at first sight appear
discouraging. When you have written a good lyric and induced someone
to compose a tune for it your first thought will be, "I will get Mr.
Throstle to sing this, and he will pay me a small fee or royalty per
performance;" and this indeed would be a good arrangement to make. The
only objection is that Mr. Throstle, so far from paying any money to
the student, will expect to be paid about fifty pounds by the student
for singing his lyric. I do not know the origin of this quaint
old custom, but the student had better not borrow any money on the
security of his first lyric.

For a serious or Queen's Hall lyric all that is necessary is to think
of some natural objects like the sun, the birds, the flowers or the
trees, mention them briefly in the first verse and then in the second
verse draw a sort of analogy or comparison between the natural object
and something to do with love. The verses can be extremely short,
since in this class of music the composer is a