question of suicide--it is a morbid taste, and a book dealing with it in any powerful or striking manner would be quite tabooed from the middle-class family circle, especially in the provinces. A forgery might be introduced, if the forger turned out to be a manly hero in the end and properly repentant--and a little (the pious publisher would say "a leetle") illicit love would not be objectionable--in fact, it might be made highly saleable if a curate and a housemaid were the guilty parties, and there were a child born who turned out to be the heir to five millions, and the erring curate set things right in the usual thirty-one-and-sixpenny way. But nothing should be drawn too strong; you understand? no luscious colouring of any sort--keep the imagination well in check--tint the canvas grey--and make the book one that will be bought by stout, moral-minded parents, for slim, no-minded young women, and it is sure of a sale--sure! And thus the pious publisher pleasantly adviseth, the while the heart of the listening author sinks lower and lower, and his soul sickens, gasping for the strong, broad eagle freedom of flight, which while he works for a pious publisher never will be his. It is a curious fact, but the pious publisher apparently possesses a very naïve, innocent, and undefiled nature. He does not know the world at all, or if he does, he has no idea of its wickedness. When he is told of some dreadful social scandal he does not believe it--dear, dear no! he cannot believe it. He is a round, paunchy man, is the pious publisher, bald-headed, clean-shaven, with an eminently respectable expression of countenance, and an ostentatious assertion of honesty in the very set of his clothes. He has a soft voice and a conciliating smile, and he gets on best with women authors. He tells them first how well they are looking--his next step is to call them "my dear." They are frequently much touched by this, and in the yielding softness of their hearts, forget to nail him down to "terms." Even the fiercest, ugliest "blue-stocking" that ever lived is conscious of a nervous quiver through the iron fibres of her soul, when the fat, unctuous, kindly, pious publisher, unawed by her stem features, says "My dear." There is a delicate something in his tone which pleasantly persuades her that, after all, it is possible she may be good-looking. Unconsciously she relaxes in severity, and he drives his bargain home with such sweet firmness as to entirely succeed in having his own way--a way which, whether it lead to advantage or loss, she, poor "blue," is generally too weak to dispute. "My dear" is a phrase that will not work on the minds of men authors of course, so the pious publisher, when he has to do with the "virile" sex, substitutes "My boy!" and accompanies this epithet with a hearty, encouraging clap on the shoulder. When the author in question is too old and frail (as well as too reduced to misery by the machinations of pious publishers) to be impressed by