n millions--immortal. It seemed a
congenial task.

I went to work forthwith.

It was only this morning that I realised the magnitude of my
accumulations. Ever since then--it was three months ago--I have been
elaborating this Dedication. I turned the pile over, idly at first.
Presently I became interested in tracing my varying moods, as they had
found a record in the heap.

This struck me--

[Illustration: A Handwritten dedication, "To my Dearest Friend"
followed by three successive names, two crossed out, then the whole
dedication struck out]

Then again, a little essay in gratitude came to hand--

TO
PROFESSOR AUGUSTUS FLOOD,
Whose Admirable Lectures on
Palaeontology
First turned my Attention to
Literature.

There was a tinge of pleasantry in the latter that pleased me very
greatly when I wrote it, and I find immediately overlying it another
essay in the same line--

To the Latter-day Reviewer,
These Pearls.

For some days I was smitten with the idea of dedicating my little
booklet to one of my numerous personal antagonists, and conveying some
subtly devised insult with an air of magnanimity. I thought, for
instance, of Blizzard--

SIR JOSEPH BLIZZARD,
The most distinguished, if not the greatest, of contemporary
anatomists.

I think it was "X.L.'s" book, _Aut Diabolus aut Nihil_, that set me upon
another line. There is, after all, your reader to consider in these
matters, your average middle-class person to impress in some way. They
say the creature is a snob, and absolutely devoid of any tinge of
humour, and I must confess that I more than half believe it. At anyrate,
it was that persuasion inspired--

To the Countess of X.,
In Memory of Many Happy Days.

I know no Countess of X., as a matter of fact, but if the public is such
an ass as to think better of my work for the suspicion, I do not care
how soon I incur it. And this again is a pretty utilisation of the waste
desert of politics--

MY DEAR SALISBURY,--Pray accept this unworthy tribute of
my affectionate esteem.

There were heaps of others. And looking at those heaps it suddenly came
sharp and vivid before my mind that there--there was the book I needed,
already written! A blank page, a dedication, a blank page, a dedication,
and so on. I saw no reason to change t