ular line, that at once there sprang up a host of imitators,
and the Celebrities were again tempted to make themselves still
more celebrated by having good-natured caricatures of themselves
made by "Age" and "Spy." After this, the deluge, of biographies,
autobiographies, interviewings, photographic realities, portraits
plain and coloured--many of them uncommonly plain, and some of them
wonderfully coloured,--until a Celebrity who has _not_ been done and
served up, with or without a plate, is a Celebrity indeed.

"Celebrities" have hitherto been valuable to the interviewer,
photographer, and proprietor of a Magazine in due proportion. Is it
not high time that the Celebrities themselves have a slice or two out
of the cake? If they consent to sit as models to the interviewer and
photographer, let them price their own time. The Baron offers a model
of correspondence on both sides, and, if his example is followed, up
goes the price of "Celebrities," and, consequently, of interviewed and
interviewers, there will be only a survival of the fittest.

_FROM A. SOPHTE SOPER TO THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS._

SIR,--Messrs. TOWER, FONDLER, TROTTING & Co., are now engaged in
bringing out a series of the leading Literary, Dramatic and Artistic
Notabilities of the present day, and feeling that the work which has
now reached its hundred-and-second number, would indeed be incomplete
did it not include _your_ name, the above-mentioned firm has
commissioned me to request you to accord me an interview as soon as
possible. I propose bringing with me an eminent photographer, and
also an artist who will make a sketch of your surroundings, and so
contribute towards producing a complete picture which cannot fail to
interest and delight the thousands at home and abroad, to whom your
name is as a household word, and who will be delighted to possess a
portrait of one whose works have given them so much pleasure, and
to obtain a closer and more intimate acquaintance with the _modus
operandi_ pursued by one of their most favourite authors.

I remain, Sir, yours truly,

A. SOPHTE SOPER.

_To the_ BARON DE BOOK-WORMS, _Vermoulen Lodge_.

_FROM THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS TO A. SOPHTE SOPER, ESQ._

DEAB SIR,--Thanks. I quite appreciate your appreciation. My terms
for an article in a Magazine, are twenty guineas the first hour,
ten guineas the second, and so on. For dinner-table anecdotes, the
property in which once made public is lost for ever to the or