ar,
Yet no one ever heard of them, out West!

XXIII

And we, that now within the Editor's Room
Make merry while we have our little Boom,
Ourselves must we give way to next month's Set--
Girls with Three Names, who know not Who from Whom!

XXIV

Ah, make the most of what we yet may do,
Before our Royalties have vanish'd, too,
Book after Book, and under Book to lie,
Sans Page, sans Cover, Reader--or Review!

XXV

Alike for those who for TO-DAY have Shame,
And those who strive for some TO-MORROW'S Fame,
A Critic from anonymous Darkness cries,
"Fools, your Reward will fool you, just the Same!"

XXVI

Why, e'en Marie Corelli, who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, is thrust
Like Elbert Hubbard forth; her Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and her Books by Critics cussed.

XXVII

Myself when young did eagerly peruse
James, Meredith and Hardy--but to lose
My Reason, trying to make Head or Tail;
The more I read, the more did they confuse.

XXVIII

With them the Germs of Madness did I sow,
And with "Two Magics" sought to make it grow;
Yet this was all the Answer that I found--
"What it is all about, I do not know!"

XXIX

Into the Library, and _Why_ not knowing,
Nor _What I Want_, I find myself a-going;
And out of it, with Nothing fit to Read--
Such is the Catalogue's anaemic Showing.

XXX

What, without asking, to be hypnotized
Into a Sale of Stevenson disguised?
Oh, many a page of Bernard Shaw's last Play
Must drown the thought of Novels Dramatized!

XXXI

Up from the Country, into gay Broadway
I came, and bought a Scribner's, yesterday,
And many a Tale I read and understood,
But not the master-tale of Kipling's "They."

XXXII

There was a Plot to which I found no Key;
And Others seem to be as Dull as Me;
Some little talk there was of Ghosts, and Such,
Then Mrs. Bathurst left me more at Sea!

XXXIII

Kim could not answer--Sherlock Holmes would fail--
The most enlightened Browningite turn pale
In futile Wonder and in blank Dismay;
Say, is there ANY Meaning to that Tale?

XXXIV

Then of the Critic, he who works behind
The Author's back, I tried the Clue to find;
But he, too, was in Darkness; and I heard
A Literary Agent say--"THEY ALL ARE BLIND!"

XXXV

Then, from the lips of Editor, I learn,
"This Story is the Kind for which I Yearn;
Its Advertising brought us such Renown,
We jumped Three Hundred Thousand, on that Turn!"