ority of them, for as yet Progressive Waffles has not
been played at Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog's.

IX

A Clearing-house for Poets

"How is your Muse these days, Mr. Idiot?" asked the Bibliomaniac one
Sunday morning while the mush was being served.

"Flourishing," said the Idiot. "Just flourishing--and no more."

"I should think you'd be pleased if she is flourishing," said the
Doctor.

"I'd rather she'd stop flourishing and do a little writing," said the
Idiot. "She's a queer Muse, that one of mine. She has all the airs and
graces of an ordinary type-writer with an unconquerable aversion to
work."

"You look upon your Muse as you would upon your type-writer, eh?" said
Mr. Pedagog.

"Yes," said the Idiot. "That's all my Muse is, and she isn't even a
capable type-writer. The general run of type-writers make sense of what
you write, but my Muse won't. You may not believe it, but out of ten
inspirations I had last week not one of them is fit for publication
anywhere but in a magazine or a puzzle column. I don't know what is the
matter with her, but when I sit down to dictate a comic sonnet she turns
it into a serious jingle, and _vice versa_. We can't seem to get our
moods to fit. When I want to be serious she's flippant, and when I
become flippant she's serious."

"She must be very serious most of the time," said the Doctor.

"She is," said the Idiot, innocently. "But that's only because I'm
flippant most of the time. I'm going to give her warning. If she doesn't
brace up and take more interest in her work I'm going to get another
Muse, that's all. I can't afford to have my income cut down fifty per
cent. just because she happens to be fickle."

"Maybe she is flirting with somebody else," suggested the Poet. "My Muse
does that occasionally."

"I doubt it," said the Idiot. "I haven't observed any other poet
encroaching upon my particular province. Even you, good as you are,
can't do it. But in any event I'm going to have a change. The day has
gone by when a one-muse poet achieves greatness. I'm going to employ a
half-dozen and try to corner the poetry market. Queer that in all these
years that men have been writing poetry no one has thought of that.
People get up grain corners, corners in railway stock, monopolies in gas
and oil and everything else, about, but as yet no poet has cornered the
market in his business."

"That's easily accounted for," said the Bibliomaniac. "The poet
controls only his own