“Call it Irving,” said Eugene Aram, who had entered.  “I too have suffered.”

“And let me be Hamlet’s understudy,” said Charles the First, earnestly.

“Done!” said Shakespeare, calling for a pad and pencil.

And as the sun rose upon the Styx the next morning the Bard of Avon was to be seen writing a comic chorus to be sung over the moribund tragedian by the shades of Charles, Aram, and other eminent deceased heroes of the stage, with which his new play of Irving was to be brought to an appropriate close.

This play has not as yet found its way upon the boards, but any enterprising manager who desires to consider it may address

Hamlet, The House-Boat, Hades-on-the-Styx.

He is sure to get a reply by return mail, unless Mephistopheles interferes, which is not unlikely, since Mephistopheles is said to have been much pleased with the manner in which the eminent tragedian has put him before the British and American public.

CHAPTER V:  THE HOUSE COMMITTEE DISCUSS THE POETS

“There’s one thing this house-boat needs,” wrote Homer in the complaint-book that adorned the centre-table in the reading-room, “and that is a Poets’ Corner.  There are smoking-rooms for those who smoke, billiard-rooms for those who play billiards, and a card-room for those who play cards.  I do not smoke, I can’t play billiards, and I do not know a trey of diamonds from a silver salver.  All I can do is write poetry.  Why discriminate against me?  By all means let us have a Poets’ Corner, where a man can be inspired in peace.”

For four days this entry lay in the book apparently unnoticed.  On the fifth day the following lines, signed by Samson, appeared: 

“I approve of Homer’s suggestion.  There should be a Poets’ Corner here.  Then the rest of us could have some comfort.  While playing vingt-et-un with Diogenes in the card-room on Friday evening a poetic member of this club was taken with a most violent fancy, and it required the combined efforts of Diogenes and myself, assisted by the janitor, to remove the frenzied and objectionable member from the room.  The habit some of our poets have acquired of giving way to their inspirations all over the club-house should be stopped, and I know of no better way to accomplish this desirable end than by the adoption of Homer’s suggestion.  Therefore I second the motion.”

Of course the suggestion of two members so prominent as Homer and Samson could not well he ignored by the house committee, and it reluctantly took the subject in hand at an early meeting.

“I find here,” said Demosthenes to the chairman, as the committee gathered, “a suggestion from Homer and Samson that this house-boat be provided with a Poets’ Corner.  I do not know that I approve of the suggestion myself, but in order to bring it before the committee for debate I am willing to make a motion that the request be granted.”