were to be duly invited, only the date was not specified. Delilah was excluded at the request of Samson, whose convincing muscles, rather than his arguments, completely won over all opposition to his proposition. CHAPTER VIII: A DISCONTENTED SHADE "It seems to me," said Shakespeare, wearily, one afternoon at the club--"that this business of being immortal is pretty dull. Didn't somebody once say he'd rather ride fifty years on a trolley in Europe than on a bicycle in Cathay?" "I never heard any such remark by any self-respecting person," said Johnson. "I said something like it," observed Tennyson. Doctor Johnson looked around to see who it was that spoke. "You?" he cried. "And who, pray, may you be?" "My name is Tennyson," replied the poet. "And a very good name it is," said Shakespeare. "I am not aware that I ever heard the name before," said Doctor Johnson. "Did you make it yourself?" "I did," said the late laureate, proudly. "In what pursuit?" asked Doctor Johnson. "Poetry," said Tennyson. "I wrote 'Locksley Hall' and 'Come into the Garden, Maude.'" "Humph!" said Doctor Johnson. "I never read 'em." "Well, why should you have read them?" snarled Carlyle. "They were written after you moved over here, and they were good stuff. You needn't think because you quit, the whole world put up its shutters and went out of business. I did a few things myself which I fancy you never heard of." "Oh, as for that," retorted Doctor Johnson, with a smile, "I've heard of you; you are the man who wrote the life of Frederick the Great in nine hundred and two volumes--" "Seven!" snapped Carlyle.