Oh! rich is the Publisher
And poor is the Publishee;
Of the profits of IT
I shall touch not a bit,
They are all swallowed up by HE.
The girls now all treat me with scorn—
Aunt turns up her n-o-s-e,
And my friends all turn tail,
While my book they assail
And call rubbish and twad-d-l-e.
Even One-and-Nine and General Mary Jane were smitten with a desire to rush into print, and I overheard them concocting a tragic Love Story in the kitchen, and they were highly indignant later on, because the Doctor-in-Law would not accept it. You can hardly wonder at it though, for it really was too bad for anything.
It was called “The Viscount’s Revenge,” and in it several characters who had been killed in the first part of the book kept cropping up all through the story in a most confusing manner, while One-and-Nine and General Mary Jane could not agree as to whether the heroine should be dark or fair, so in one part of the book she had beautiful golden hair and blue eyes, and in another she was described as “darkly, proudly handsome, with a wealth of dusky hair and eyes as black as night.”
the literary housemaid
At the last moment it was found necessary to include another poem in the magazine, and, as all of the Rhymester’s were too long, the Doctor-in-Law decided to write one himself, which he called
COMMERCIAL PROBLEMS.
Why doth the little busy bee
Not charge so much an hour,
For gathering honey day by day
From every opening flower?
And can you tell me why, good sir,
The birds receive no pay
For singing sweetly in the grove
Throughout the livelong day?