THE SIMPLE FAITH Seated in the reading-room of a club to which he had newly procured admission, Everard Barfoot was glancing over the advertisement columns of a literary paper.

His eye fell on an announcement that had a personal interest to him, and at once he went to the writing-table to pen a letter.
'DEAR MICKLETHWAITE,--I am back in England, and ought before this to have written to you.

I see you have just published a book with an alarming title, "A Treatise on Trilinear Co-ordinates." My hearty congratulations on the completion of such a labour; were you not the most disinterested of mortals, I would add a hope that it may somehow benefit you financially.

I presume there _are_ people who purchase such works.

But of course the main point with you is to have delivered your soul on Trilinear Co-ordinates.