"Dick cares for nothing but music-hall songs," explained the poetic Ferdinand loftily. "Oh yes, I do--for cake and tea, among other things, and here it comes. Make a rhyme on it, Ferdy." "Don't call me Ferdy," said Priggs sharply. "Then Birdie," observed Dick, in a teasing tone, "though you're more like an owl than any other bird." "Now don't fight," said Pumpkin, who was now seated in front of a rustic table on which the tea-things were set out. "Milk and sugar, Mr. Beaumont?" "Both, thank you," said Beaumont, bending forward. "By-the-way, I saw Miss Challoner to-day--we were talking about you, Blake." "Were you indeed?" observed Reginald, rather irritated at the free and easy manner of the speaker. "Yes--about your voice. I got a letter from a friend of mine in Town, of which I will tell you later on." "I suppose Reggy will be leaving us all for London soon," said Dick enviously. "Lucky Reginald," sighed Ferdinand, "I wish I were going to London." "What, with a bundle of poems in your pocket?" said Reginald laughing. "I'm afraid you wouldn't set the Thames on fire--poetry doesn't pay." "Nor literature of any sort," observed Dick, "at least, so I understand." "Then you understand wrong," said Beaumont coolly, "you go by Scott's saying, I presume--that literature is a good staff but a bad crutch--all that is altered now." "Not as regards poetry." "No--not as regards poetry certainly, but success in literature greatly depends on the tact of a writer; if a young man goes to London with a translation of Horace or Lucian in his pocket he will find his goods are not wanted; if Milton went to Paternoster Row at the present time, with the MS. of 'Paradise Lost' in his hand, I don't believe he would find a publisher. We talk a great deal of noble poems and beautiful thoughts, but it's curious what unsaleable articles even the best of them are." "Then what does sell?" asked Ferdinand. "Anything that pleases the public--a sensational novel--a sparkling Society poem--a brilliant magazine article--a witty play--you'll get plenty of chances to make money with these things; you see people live so rapidly now that they have no time to study in their play hours, therefore they want the very froth and foam of the time served up to them for their reading, so as to take their thoughts off their work. We praise 'Tom Jones' and 'Clarissa' immensely, but who reads them when they can skim the last three volume novel or the latest pungent article on the state of Europe?--no one wants to be instructed now-a-days, but they do want to be amused." "How do people live in London?" asked Pumpkin, who, being an unsophisticated country maiden, was absolutely ignorant of anything connected with the great metropolis.