In acting thus Mr. Punch feels, in the true spirit of the newest and the Reviewest of Reviews, that he is conferring a favour on the authors concerned by allowing them the publicity of these columns.  Sometimes pruning and condensation may be necessary.  The operation will be performed as kindly as circumstances permit.  It is hardly necessary to add that Mr. Punch will give his own prize in his own way, and at his own time, to the author he may deem the best.  And herewith Mr. Punch gives a specimen of—­

NO.  I.—­ONE MAN IN A COAT.

(BY ARRY O.K.  ARRY, AUTHOR OF “STIGE FICES,” “CHEAP WORDS OF A CHIPPY CHAPPIE,” ETSETTERER.)

[Prefatory note.—­This Novel was carefully wrapped up in some odd leaves of Mark TWAIN’S Innocents Abroad, and was accompanied by a letter in which the author declared that the book was worth L3000, but that “to save any more blooming trouble,” he would be willing to take the prize of L1000 by return of post, and say no more about it.—­Ed.]

CHAPTER I.

It was all the Slavey what got us into the mess.  Have you ever noticed what a way a Slavey has of snuffling and saying, “Lor, Sir, oo’d ’a thought it?” on the slightest provocation.  She comes into your room just as you are about to fill your finest two-handed meerschaum with Navy-cut, and looks at you with a far-away look in her eyes, and a wisp of hair winding carelessly round the neck of her print dress.  You murmur something in an insinuating way about that box of Vestas you bought last night from the blind man who stands outside “The Old King of Prussia” pub round the corner.  Then one of her hairpins drops into the fireplace, and you rush to pick it up, and she rushes at the same moment, and your head goes crack against her head, and you see some stars, and a weary kind of sensation comes over you, and just as you feel inclined to send for the cat’s-meat man down the next court to come and fetch you away to the Dogs’ Home, in bounces your landlady, and with two or three “Well, I nevers!” and “There’s an imperent ’ussey, for you!” nearly bursts the patent non-combustible bootlace you lent her last night to hang the brass locket round her neck by.

Pottle says his landlady’s different, but then Pottle always was a rum ’un, and nobody knows what old rag-and-bone shop he gets his landladies from.  I always get mine only at the best places, and advise everybody else to do the same.  I mentioned this once to bill Moser, who looks after the calico department in the big store in the High Street, but he only sniffed, and said, “Garne, you don’t know everythink!” which was rude of him.  I might have given him one for himself just then, but I didn’t.  I always was a lamb; but I made up my mind that next time I go into the ham-and-beef shop kept by old Mother Moser I’ll say something about “’orses from Belgium” that the old lady won’t like.