"Well, to tell the truth," said his friend, a little crestfallen at having to confess, "I always get the books you pitch into. So do lots of people. We are only plain, ordinary, homespun people, you know; so we feel sure that whatever you praise will be too superior for us, while what you condemn will suit us to a _t_. That is why the great public studies and respects your criticisms. You are our literary pastor and monitor. Your condemnation is our guide-post, and your praise is our _Index Expurgatorius_. But for you we should be lost in the wilderness of new books." "And this is all the result of my years of laborious criticism," fumed the _Acadæum_ critic. "Proceed, sir." "Well, what I came to say was, that if my memory does not play me a trick after all these years, 'A Fingersnap for Fate' is your long-lost novel." "What!" shrieked the great critic; "my long-lost child! Impossible." "Yes," persisted his oldest and dearest friend. "I recognised it by the strawberry mark in Cap. II., where the hero compares the younger generation to fresh strawberries smothered in stale cream. I remember your reading it to me!" "Heavens! The whole thing comes back to me," cried the critic. "Now I know why I damned it so unmercifully for plagiarism! All the while I was reading it, there was a strange, haunting sense of familiarity." "But, surely you will expose the thief!" "How can I? It would mean confessing that I wrote the book myself. That I slated it savagely, is nothing. That will pass as a good joke, if not a piece of rare modesty. But confess myself the author of such a wretched failure!" "Excuse me," said his friend. "It is not a failure. It is a very popular success. It is selling like wildfire. Excuse the inaccurate simile; but you know what I mean. Your notice has sent the sale up tremendously. Ever since your notice appeared, the printing presses have been going day and night and are utterly unable to cope with the demand. Oh, you must not let a rogue make a fortune out of you like this. That would be too sinful." So the great critic sought out the thief. And they divided the profits. And then the thief, who was a fool as well as a rogue, wrote another book--all out of his own head this time. And the critic slated it. And they divided the profits. _A Tragi-Comedy of Creeds._ Not much before midnight in a midland town--a thriving commercial town, whose dingy back streets swarmed with poverty and piety--a man in a soft felt hat and a white tie was hurrying home over a bridge that spanned a dark crowded river. He had missed the tram, and did not care to be seen out late, but he could not afford a cab. Suddenly he felt a tug at his long black coat-tail. Vaguely alarmed and definitely annoyed, he turned round quickly. A breathless, roughly-clad, rugged-featured man loosed his hold of the skirt. "'Scuse me, sir--I've been running," gasped the stranger, placing his horny hand on his breast and panting.