EVERY AUTHOR'S WIFE.
["What is the first step towards literary production? It is imperative, if you wish to write with any freshness at all, that you should utterly ruin your digestion."—H. G. Wells.]
"What have you dined on, husband mine?"
"Chocolate creams and ginger wine."
"What did you take as an appetiser?"
"Haggis and Sauerkraut à la Kaiser."
"Didn't they give you any sweet?"
"Hard-boiled eggs and whisky neat."
"And your fruit, I trust, was over-ripe?"
"Doughnuts five with a pound of tripe."
"Have you had nothing at all since then?"
"Lobster and stout." "Then here's your pen,
"You must do a chapter or two to-night;
Have a banana and start to write."