changed hands and politics. Once, as will be seen in the ensuing pages, I adored the Pall Mall Gazette. Its fads, its whimsies, its prize "booms," and above all its religious notions, were my delight. It was, as I said, a "bright particular star" in the sphere of journalism, but I doubt whether it will continue to shine on. I much fear that its days of Whimsicality and Boom are over, though it now has a serious and gentlemanly Scot for an editor, who does not find his chief amusement in levelling cheap sneers at Crown and Constitution, and advocating a dangerous and (at heart) unpopular Democracy. However, we shall see. In the interim, though I may not now "adore" the Pall Mall, I mournfully respect it.

I fancy I have made a slight error in that harmless, but Grundy-scaring jest of mine entitled "The Journalist's Creed." I have alluded to the excellent and brilliant Henry Labouchere, as "very Rad of very Rad." It should have been "very Tory of very Tory." This is absurd? Incongruous? Impossible? Well! Events will prove

whether I am right or wrong. And I beg to assure all whom it may concern, that I consider there is no more "irreverence" in the in the "Journalist's

Creed" than is displayed by the respectable churchgoer who murmurs an address or prayer to God in the hollow of his stove-pipe hat, rather than spoil the set of his trousers by kneeling down.

I very earnestly desire to thank my critics one and all for the attention they have bestowed upon me. They have taken me very seriously; much more seriously than I have taken myself. I am so little "peculiar," that I confess to have copied the phraseology of my diatribes on certain poets and novelists from the language of the "reviews" in divers journals, and I am truly surprised to hear such phraseology termed "vulgar." When I was a "known" author (I was, once !) reviewers "reviewed" me with a profuseness of vituperative force that struck me as singular; but I did not presume to call their well-rounded terms of abuse "vulgar" or "scurrilous." Now I see I might very well have done so, as they all agree in a condemnation

of their own literary vernacular. One lives and learns (this is a platitude), and when an author anonymously "slates" those who anonymously "slate" him, it is curious and instructive to observe what a different view is taken of his case! It is a strange world (platitude number two).

In conclusion I would fain express my gratitude for the diverting entertainment which I have had out of the various "guesses as to my identity. They are guesses as wild and strange and erroneous as any that ever followed the track of a "domino noir" through the mazes of Carnival. I can, however, only repeat that I am not what I seem, and that up to the present, so far as my personality has been hinted at, or even boldly asserted, such supposititious "clues" are all random shots and fall wide of the mark. With the utmost civility, I beg to inform you, dear friends and enemies alike, that in this trivial matter of "guessing," you are all, every one of you,—wrong!

THE SILVER DOMINO,

Nov. 9th, 1892.