ober morning I have written fifty-three
novels; I have lost dear old friends and found new friends, who are also
dear, but I have never looked on a Yorkshire landscape since I turned my
reluctant eyes from those level meadows and green lanes where the old
chestnut mare used to carry me ploddingly to and fro between tall,
tangled hedges of eglantine and honeysuckle.

[Illustration: MISS BRADDON'S INKSTAND.]

* * * * *

NOVEL NOTES.

BY JEROME K. JEROME.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. GUeLICH AND J. GREIG,

PART X.

[Illustration: "DISCUSSION AT OUR LAST MEETING."]

The final question discussed at our last meeting had been: What shall
our hero be? MacShaugnassy had suggested an author, with a critic for
the villain. Brown's fancy was an artist. My idea was a stockbroker,
with an undercurrent of romance in his nature. Said Jephson, who has a
practical mind, approaching at times the commercial: "The question is
not what we like, but what the female novel-reader likes."

"That is so," agreed MacShaugnassy. "I propose that we collect feminine
opinion upon this point. I will write to my aunt, and get from her the
old lady's view. You," he said, turning to me, "can put the case to your
wife, and get the young lady's ideal. Let Brown write to his sister at
Newnham, and find out whom the intellectual maiden favours, while
Jephson can learn from Miss Medbury what is most attractive to the
common-sensed girl."

This plan we had adopted, and the result was now under consideration.
MacShaugnassy opened the proceedings by reading his aunt's letter. Wrote
the old lady:

"I think, if I were you, my dear boy, I should choose a
soldier. You know your poor grandfather, who ran away to
America with that _wicked_ Mrs. Featherly, the banker's wife,
was a soldier, and so was your poor cousin Robert, who lost
eight thousand pounds at Monte Carlo. I have always felt
singularly drawn towards soldiers, even as a girl; though your
poor dear uncle could not bear them. You will find many
allusions to soldiers and men of war in the Old Testament (see
Jer. 48,14). Of course one does not like to think of their
fighting and killing each other, but then they do not seem to
do much of that sort of thing nowadays."

"So much for the old lady," said MacShaugnassy, as he folded up the
letter and returned it to his pocket. "What says culture?"

[Illustration: BROWN READ AS