Yes! Shakespeare wrote the plays--'tis clear to me.
Lord Bacon's claim's condemned before the bar.
He'd not have penned, "what fools these mortals be!"
But--more correct--"what fools these mortals are!"
"That's not bad," said the Poet.
[Illustration: "'WE WOOED THE SELF-SAME MAID'"]
"Thanks," returned the Idiot. "I wish you were an editor. I wrote that
last spring, and it has been coming back to me at the rate of once a
week ever since."
"It is too short," said the Bibliomaniac.
"It's an epigram," said the Idiot. "How many yards long do you think
epigrams should be?"
The Bibliomaniac scorned to reply.
"I agree with the Bibliomaniac," said the School-master. "It is too
short. People want greater quantity."
"Well, here is quantity for you," said the Idiot. "Quantity as she is
not wanted by nine comic papers I wot of. This poem is called:
"THE TURNING OF THE WORM.
"'How hard my fate perhaps you'll gather in,
My dearest reader, when I tell you that
I entered into this fair world a twin--
The one was spare enough, the other fat.
"'I was, of course, the lean one of the two,
The homelier as well, and consequently
In ecstasy o'er Jim my parents flew,
And good of me was spoken accident'ly.
"'As boys, we went to school, and Jim, of course,
Was e'er his teacher's favorite, and ranked
Among the lads renowned for moral force,
Whilst I was every day right soundly spanked.
"'Jim had an angel face, but there he stopped.
I never knew a lad who'd sin so oft
And look so like a branch of heaven lopped
From off the parent trunk that grows aloft.
"'I seemed an imp--indeed 'twas often said
That I resembled much Beelzebub.
My face was freckled and my hair was red--
The kind of looking boy that men call scrub.
"'Kind deeds, however, were my constant thought;
In everything I did the best I could;
I said my prayers thrice daily, and I sought
In all my ways to do the right and good.
"'On Saturdays I'd do my Monday's sums,
While Jim would spend the day in search of fun;
He'd sneak away and steal the neighbors' plums,
And, strange to say, to earth was never run.
"'Whilst I, when study-time was haply through,
Would seek my brother in the neighbor's orchard;
Would find the neighbor there with anger blue,
And as the thieving culprit would be tortured.
"'The sums I'd done he'd steal, this lad forsaken,
Then change my work, so that a paltry four
Would be my mark, whilst he had overtaken
The maximum and all the prizes bore.
"'In later years we loved the self-same maid;
We sent her little presents, sweets, bouquets,
For which, alas! 'twas I that always paid;
And Jim the maid now honors and obeys.
"'We entered politics--in different roles,
And for a minor office each did run.
'Twas I was left--left badly at the polls,
Because of fishy things that Jim had done.
"'When Jim went into business and failed,
I signed his notes and freed him from the strife
Which bankruptcy and ruin hath entailed
On them that lead a queer financial life.
"'Then, penniless, I learned that Jim had set
Aside before his failure--hard to tell!--
A half a million dollars on his pet--
His Mrs. Jim--the former lovely Nell.
"'That wearied me of Jim. It may be right
For one to bear another's cross, but I
Quite fail to see it in its proper light,
If that's the rule man should be guided by.
"'And since a fate perverse has had the wit
To mix us up so that the one's deserts
Upon the shoulders of the other sit,
No matter how the other one it hurts,
"'I am resolved to take some mortal's life;
Just when, or where, or how, I do not reck,
So long as law will end this horrid strife
And twist my dear twin brother's sinful neck.'"
"There," said the Idiot, putting down the manuscript. "How's that?"
"I don't like it," said Mr. Whitechoker. "It is immoral and vindictive.
You should accept the hardships of life, no matter how unjust. The
conclusion of your poem horrifies me, sir. I--"
[Illustration: CURING INSOMNIA]
"Have you tried your hand at dialect poetry?" asked the Doctor.
"Yes; once," said the Idiot. "I sent it to the _Great Western Weekly_.
Oh yes. Here it is. Sent back with thanks. It's an octette written in
cigar-box dialect."
"In wh-a-at?" asked the Poet.
"Cigar-box dialect. Here it is:
"'O Manuel garcia alonzo,
Colorado especial H. Clay,
Invincible flora alphonzo,
Cigarette panatella el rey,
Victoria Reina selectas--
O twofer madura grandé--
O conchas oscuro perfectas,
You drive all my sorrows away.'"
"Ingenious, but vicious," said the School-master, who does not smoke.
"Again thanks. How is this for a sonnet?" said the Idiot:
"'When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancel'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I now pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think of thee, dear friend!
All losses are restored and sorrows end.'"
"It is bosh!" said the School-master. The Poet smiled quietly.
"Perfect bosh!" repeated the School-master. "And only shows how in weak
hands so beautiful a thing as the sonnet can be made ridiculous."
"What's wrong with it?" asked the Idiot.
"It doesn't contain any thought--or if it does, no one can tell what the
thought is. Your rhymes are atrocious. Your phraseology is ridiculous.
The whole thing is bad. You'll never get anybody to print it."
"I do not intend to try," said the Idiot, meekly.
"You are wise," said the School-master, "to take my advice for once."
"No, it is not your advice that restrains me," said the Idiot, dryly.
"It is the fact that this sonnet has already been printed."
"In the name of Letters, where?" cried the School-master.
"In the collected works of William Shakespeare," replied the Idiot,
quietly.
The Poet laughed; Mrs. Smithers's eyes filled with tears; and the
School-master for once had absolutely nothing to say.