But the mystery remains a mystery. He did not reveal it to me, in spite of his gratitude for my contribution, and I still hold to my opinion that such delay is discourteous to a male contributor, and ungallant to a lady. Besides, what is the reason? Is it that the editor waits to see what space he has got left at the finish, and then accepts an article, not for its merits, but for its length, on much the same principle as a lady will ask you at breakfast for _just_ the amount of bread that will suit a remnant of butter, or _vice versa_? If so, Aristophanes had anticipated the process, or one very nearly resembling it—“Man, man,” he says, “they are weighing my tragedy as if it were a pound of beef!” By the way, why shouldn’t the editorial chair be thrown open to competition? It is thus we elect our Professors, or some of them, at Cambridge. Let a candidate for the office be required to compose an “Exercise”—say a complete story for the magazine he aspires to conduct. So should we respect an editor more, or (possibly) fear him less. At any rate, no order of men, least of all one which examines others, should be debarred now-a-days from the privilege of being examined in its turn. The fear is that, if my suggestion were acted upon, it would empty the Universities of their Professors. Who could resist the attraction of a post which limits the bulk of its correspondence to one conventional formula? Besides, to a tired Tripos examiner, the duty of looking over a few hundred magazine articles per month would be a frolic—a light and airy holiday task. But he’d think the rules of the competition a trifle rough on the candidates, and might be tempted to violate decorum by an occasional word of encouragement and help. Apart from the suspense they inflicted upon me, due no doubt to the care they bestowed on the investigation, I think the editors were not far out in their judgment of my work. It always looked so heavy, even to a partial critic like myself, on the morning after I had written it. Once, in despair, I showed an article to a great novelist, who is happily also a great friend. “What _is_ the reason,” I asked him, “that it always looks so lumpy and devoid of wit and smartness?” I wonder he had patience to read it through. Perhaps it was my presence that inspired him. Then he said, “Not so bad in sense, but, as you say, terribly cumbrous in form. Let’s see what’s the matter with it. Why, it’s description, description, description, instead of action, action, action, as Demosthenes recommended in a kindred art. It’s an essay—good enough so far as the matter goes—but wearisome and heavy almost beyond _my_ endurance.” “Well, what’s to be done with it?”