At sixteen he made his first contribution to the press.

It was a discussion of a quasi-social subject, the relation of the sexes in society.

He was at the impressionable age, when the rosy god of love is at his tricks.

He was also at a stage of development, when boys are least attractive, when they are disagreeably virile, full of their own importance and the superiority of their sex.

In the "Breach of the Marriage Promise," by "An Old Bachelor," these signs of adolescence are by no means wanting, they are, on the contrary, distinctly present and palpable.