There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay,
When the artist’s hand is potting it;
There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay,
When the poet’s pad is blotting¹ it;
There is pleasure in the shine of your picture on the line
At the Royal Acade-my;
But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to Cheddar cheese,
When it comes to a well-made Lie
To a quite unwreckable Lie,
To a most impeccable Lie,
To a water-tight, fireproof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock,
steel-faced Lie!
Not a private hansom Lie,
But a pair and brougham Lie,
Not a little place at Tooting, but a country-house with shooting,
And a ring-fence, deer-park Lie.

— Op. 3.

A common rest-house in the desert is not overstocked with furniture or carpets. One table, two chairs, a rack on the door for clothing, and a list of charges, are sufficient for each room; and the traveller brings his own bedding. Tarvin read the tariff² with deep interest before falling asleep that night, and discovered that this was only in a distant sense a hotel, and that he was open to the danger of being turned out at twelve hours’ notice, after he had inhabited his unhomely apartment for a day and a night.

Before he went to bed he called for pen and ink, and wrote a letter to Mrs. Mutrie on the notepaper of his land and improvement company. Under the map of Colorado, at the top, which confidently showed the railroad system of the State converging⁵ at Topaz, was the legend, ‘N. Tarvin, Real Estate and Insurance Agent.’ The tone of his letter was even more assured than the map.

He dreamed that night that the Maharajah was swapping⁶ the Naulahka with him for town lots. His Majesty⁷ backed out just as they were concluding the deal, and demanded that Tarvin should throw in his own favourite mine, the ‘Lingering Lode,’ to boot. In his dream Tarvin had kicked at this, and the Maharajah had responded, ‘All right, my boy; no Three C.‘s then,’ and Tarvin had yielded the point, had hung the Naulahka about Mrs. Mutrie’s neck, and in the same breath had heard the Speaker of the Colorado legislature declaring that since the coming of the Three C.‘s he officially recognised Topaz as the

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