But while we are thus to some extent restricted--and after all, does not art imply restriction?--yet within these bounds there is ample freedom. The writer is at liberty to choose the hero’s name, we take it, and may even let his fancy wander somewhat in his description of the fellow, making him tall or short, fat or thin, dark or fair, according to the author’s taste in these matters. For example, he may relate how Joe Brown, short, fat, and fair, advances in position and earnings by taking a correspondence course of steeplejackery (or whatever it is that makes a steeplejack); or, again, he may show how Marmaduke Grubstock-Datterville not only advances in position, but retrieves the family fortunes by applying himself to a course (entirely by correspondence) of wholesale grocery. This, surely, is something. Moreover, the rate of advance in the hero’s position and the extent of his earnings are matters that are probably left to the author’s discretion, and he is no true penman who cannot make something of humour and pathos out of such material. The type of story being thus fixed, it is clear that the most important point left is the hero’s trade or profession. If the story-teller is free to give his hero any trade or profession he pleases, he has no right to complain of undue restriction. If, on the other hand, the trade or profession used in each story is determined beforehand by the authorities, then we may say that perhaps our editor is pressing a little too heavily upon his contributors. The remark in parenthesis, coming at the end of the editor’s note as if it were a sudden inspiration or a kindly afterthought, settles the question: ‘Preferred occupations indicated by Editor on application.’ It is a compromise, and, we think, a very sensible one; neither author nor editor is enthroned or fettered; there is a possibility of mutual help and, we trust, sympathy. Note the advantages of such an arrangement. In the first place, as the readers of _Ambition_ are men who have their eye on the labour market, men who know what is what, it will not do to put before them any sort of trade or profession and to talk wildly about it. Writers of fiction may be very tricksy fellows, but it is quite clear that it would not be wise to leave them entirely to themselves when they are choosing trades for their 4,000-4,500 word heroes; without expert guidance there is no telling into what gimcrack, monstrous jobs they would thrust the creatures of their fancy. It is easy to see that one would have to be circumspect in this matter of a trade; in this, as in other things, there must be judgment; an apt choice is requisite. It would, for example, be quite useless scribbling down four thousand words about a young ambitious crossbowman or alchemist; we may be sure that our editor would not have his confiding readers dealt with so anachronously; he would not suffer them to be led by desires that are several centuries beyond fruition.