“Dear,” said the poor dreamer, “the clown makes a very pretty specter, with his ghastly white face, and his blood-boltered cheeks and nose. I never saw the fun of a clown before, no! no! no! it is not the clown, it is worse, much worse; oh, dear, ugh!” and Triplet rolled off the couch like Richard the Third. He sat a moment on the floor, with a finger in each eye; and then, finding he was neither daubing, ranting, nor deluging earth with “acts,” he accused himself of indolence, and sat down to write a small tale of blood and bombast; he took his seat at the deal table with some alacrity, for he had recently made a discovery. How to write well, _rien que cela._ “First, think in as homely a way as you can; next, shove your pen under the thought, and lift it by polysyllables to the true level of fiction,” (when done, find a publisher--if you can). “This,” said Triplet, “insures common sense to your ideas, which does pretty well for a basis,” said Triplet, apologetically, “and elegance to the dress they wear.” Triplet, then casting his eyes round in search of such actual circumstances as could be incorporated on this plan with fiction, began to work thus: TRIPLET'S FACTS. TRIPLET'S FICTION. A farthing dip is on the table. A solitary candle cast its pale gleams around. It wants snuffing. Its elongated wick betrayed an owner steeped in oblivion. He jumped up, and snuffed it. He rose languidly, and trimmed it with his fingers. Burned his with an instrument that he had by his fingers, and swore a little. side for that purpose, and muttered a silent ejaculation Before, however, the mole Triplet could undermine literature and level it with the dust, various interruptions and divisions broke in upon his design, and _sic nos servavit_ Apollo. As he wrote the last sentence, a loud rap came to his door. A servant in livery brought him a note from Mr. Vane, dated Covent Garden. Triplet's eyes sparkled, he bustled, wormed himself into a less rusty coat, and started off to the Theater Royal, Covent Garden. In those days, the artists of the pen and the brush ferreted patrons, instead of aiming to be indispensable to the public, the only patron worth a single gesture of the quill. Mr. Vane had conversed with Triplet, that is, let Triplet talk to him in a coffee-house, and Triplet, the most sanguine of unfortunate men, had already built a series of expectations upon that interview, when this note arrived. Leaving him on his road from Lambeth to Covent Garden, we must introduce more important personages.