The Genial Idiot

d, the Rhymster, took his place beside him at the breakfa

ged to make a fair living with them, but poetry is a different thing. The divine afflatus doesn't come to every one, you know; and I doubt if a

work shows the occasional touch of inspiration. It does. In fact, it shows more than that

gan when I was twelve with a limerick. A

a young man

he red-hot

ed: 'Is

red, 'We

ild way for t

"That wasn't a bad begin

ree weeks later I was launched. I've had the cac?thes scribendi ever since-but, alas! I got more fame in that brief hour of

nsense of Henry Wintergreen Boggs, whose name appears in the newspapers every day in the year; of Susan Aldershot Spinks, whose portrait is almost as common an occurrence in the papers as that of Lydia Squinkham; of Circumflex Jones, th

while," said the Poet. "If there's any good in my stuff,

ears after you're dea

smiled

until it crocks and fades, so that your great-grandchildren can swell around the country sporting a name that has become a household word, but I'm blessed if I care for that sort of thing. I don't believe in storing up caramels for some twenty-first-century baby that bears my name to cut his teeth on, when I have a sweet tooth of my own that is pining away

e Poet. "But in literature there is

e age of the Get Fame-Quick Scheme. You can make a reputation in five minutes, if you only know the ropes. I know of at least two

store!" put in Mr. Whit

on to be called the United States Fame Company, Limited, the main purpose of which shall be to earn money for its stockholders by making its customers famous at so much per head. It won't make an

dollars' worth of notoriety,

ap sort. But I warn you in advance that if you go in for cheap notoriety, you'll find

mething of the quality of the fame you have to sell. Tell me of somebody you've made a name for, an

n't mind telling you, but I don't believe in giving away

and the Idiot whispered a c

the Poet, in

rcumstances whatsoever, so we made him write it out in full: Philander Kenilworth Dubbins-regular broadside, you see. P. K. Dubbins was a pop-shot, but Philander Kenilworth Dubbins spreads out like a dum-dum bullet or hits you like a blast from a Gatling gun. Print

ied your difficulties by three. If it was hard for your friend Dubbins to make one na

ms, and had not yet died; we got Edward Pinkham, the author of "The Man with the Watering-pot," to send us a type-written letter, saying that Dubbins was a coming man, and that his latest book, Howls from Helicon, contained many inspired lines. But, best of all, we prevailed upon the manufacturers of celluloid soap to print a testimonial from Dubbins himself, saying that there was no other soap like it in the market. That brought his name prominently before every magazine-reader in the country, because the celluloid-soap people are among the biggest advertisers of the

e of Dubbins famous in let

There are a million public dinners every year, but a limited supply of good speakers; so, with a little effort, we got Dubbins on five toast-cards, hired a humorist out in Wisconsin to write five breezy speeches for him, Dubbins committed them to memory, and they went off like hot-cakes. Morning papers would come out with Dubbins's picture printed in between that of Bishop Potter and

ulated Mr. Whitechoker.

as for his wonderful poem, 'The Mystery of Life,' from hearing a canary inadvertently whistle a bar of 'Hiawatha;' that Dubbins was the best-dressed author in the State of New York, affecting green plaid waistcoats, pink shirts, and red neckties; witty things that Dubbins's boy had said about Dubbins's work to Dubbins himself were also spread all over the land, until finally Philander Kenilworth Dubbins became a select series of household

ortality for a hundred dolla

e Idiot, joyfully.

ghed the Poet. "

I think it's abominable that this commercial spirit of the age should have affected even you poets. You ou