Part 86 (2/2)

Two Qui his were talking in Leadenhall Street.

1st Qui hi. ”Well, so you are going out again.”

2d Qui hi. ”Yes; they have offered me a commissioners.h.i.+p. I must make another lac for the children.”

1st Qui hi. ”When do you sail?”

2d Qui hi. ”By the first good s.h.i.+p. I should like a good s.h.i.+p.”

1st Qui hi. ”Well, then, you had better go out with Gentleman Dodd.”

2d Qui hi. ”Gentleman Dodd? I should prefer Sailor Dodd. I don't want to founder off the Cape.”

1st Qui hi. ”Oh, but this is a first-rate sailor, and a first-rate fellow altogether.”

2d Qui hi. ”Then why do you call him 'Gentleman Dodd'?”

1st Qui hi. ”Oh, because he is so polite. He won't stand an oath within hearing of his quarter-deck, and is particularly kind and courteous to the pa.s.sengers, especially to the ladies. His s.h.i.+p is always full.”

2d Qui hi. ”Is it? Then I'll go out with 'Gentleman Dodd.'”

TO MY MALE READERS.

I SEE with some surprise that there still linger in the field of letters writers who think that, in fiction, when a personage speaks with an air of conviction, the sentiments must be the author's own.

(When two of his personages give each other the lie, which represents the author? both?)

I must ask you to shun this error; for instance, do not go and take Eve Dodd's opinion of my heroine, or Mrs. Bazalgette's, for mine.

Miss Dodd, in particular, however epigrammatic she may appear, is shallow: her criticism _peche par la base._ She talks too much as if young girls were in the habit of looking into their own minds, like little metaphysicians, and knowing all that goes on there; but, on the contrary, this is just what women in general don't do, and young women can't do.

No male will quite understand Lucy Fountain who does not take ”instinct” and ”self-deception” into the account. But with those two dews and your own intelligence, you cannot fail to unravel her, and will, I hope, thank me in your hearts for leaving you something to study, and not clogging my sluggish narrative with a ma.s.s of comment and explanation.

The End.

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