THE IDLER MAGAZINE. AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY. EDITED BY JEROME K. JEROME & ROBERT BARR. VOL. III. FEBRUARY TO JULY, 1893. XIII. FEB. 1893. LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, 214, PICCADILLY. 1893. * * * * * CONTENTS. CHEATING THE GALLOWS. BY I. ZANGWILL. MY FIRST NOVEL.--THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT. BY MISS M. E. BRADDON. NOVEL NOTES. BY JEROME K. JEROME. THE SKATER. BY WILLIAM CANTON. MY SERVANT ANDREAS. BY ARCHIBALD FORBES. TOLD BY THE COLONEL.-- X. A MATRIMONIAL ROMANCE. BY W. L. ALDEN. "LIONS IN THEIR DENS."-- II. GEORGE GROSSMITH AND THE HUMOUR OF HIM. BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT. A BLIND BEGGARMAN. BY FRANK MATHEW. CHURCH AND STAGE.--A REVIEW OF HENRY IRVING. BY THE REV. DR. JOSEPH PARKER. THAT BEAST BEAUTY. BY KIRBY HARE. PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET.--MRS. HUMPHRY WARD. BY SCOTT RANKIN. THE IDLERS CLUB Is Love a Practical Reality or a Pleasing Fiction? * * * * * CHEATING THE GALLOWS. BY I. ZANGWILL. ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON. CHAPTER I. CURIOUS COUPLE. [Illustration: THE CORPSE WASHED UP BY THE RIVER.] They say that a union of opposites makes the happiest marriage, and perhaps it is on the same principle that men who chum are always so oddly assorted. You shall find a man of letters sharing diggings with an auctioneer, and a medical student pigging with a stockbroker's clerk. Perhaps each thus escapes the temptation to talk "shop" in his hours of leisure, while he supplements his own experiences of life by his companion's. [Illustration: TOM PETERS.] [Illustration: EVERARD G. ROXDAL.] There could not be an odder couple than Tom Peters and Everard G. Roxdal--the contrast began with their names, and ran through the entire chapter. They had a bedroom and a sitting-room in common, but it would not be easy to find what else. To his landlady, worthy Mrs. Seacon, Tom Peters's profession was a little vague, but everybody knew that Roxdal was the manager of the City and Suburban Bank, and it puzzled her to think why a bank manager should live with such a seedy-looking person, who smoked clay pipes and sipped whiskey and water all the evening when he was at home. For Roxdal was as spruce and erect as his fellow-lodger was round-shouldered and shabby; he never smoked, and he confined himself to a small glass of claret at dinner.