" Then, with a change of tone, "Tom,"
muttered he, "they are losing their respect for specters; if they do,
hunger will make a ghost of me." Next he fancied the clown or somebody
had got into his ghost's costume.
"Dear," said the poor dreamer, "the clown makes a very pretty specter,
with his ghastly white face, and his blood-boltered cheeks and nose. I
never saw the fun of a clown before, no! no! no! it is not the clown, it
is worse, much worse; oh, dear, ugh!" and Triplet rolled off the couch
like Richard the Third. He sat a moment on the floor, with a finger in
each eye; and then, finding he was neither daubing, ranting, nor deluging
earth with "acts," he accused himself of indolence, and sat down to write
a small tale of blood and bombast; he took his seat at the deal table
with some alacrity, for he had recently made a discovery.
How to write well, _rien que cela._
"First, think in as homely a way as you can; next, shove your pen under
the
thought, and lift it by polysyllables to the true level of fiction"
(when done, find a publisher--if you can). "This," said Triplet, "insures
common sense to your ideas, which does pretty well for a basis," said
Triplet, apologetically, "and elegance to the dress they wear." Triplet,
then casting his eyes round in search of such actual circumstances as
could be incorporated on this plan with fiction, began to work thus:
TRIPLET'S FACTS.
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