I have grown hard to satisfy, and write very
slowly. And I have so much--not fiction--that _will_ be thought of, when
I don't want to think of it, that I am forced to take more care than I
once took."

The first number was launched at last, on the first of May; and after
two days he wrote: "Nothing can be better than _Our Friend_, now in his
thirtieth thousand, and orders flowing in fast." But between the first
and second number there was a drop of five thousand, strange to say, for
the larger number was again reached, and much exceeded, before the book
closed. "This leaves me" (10th of June) "going round and round like a
carrier-pigeon before swooping on number seven." Thus far he had held
his ground; but illness came, with some other anxieties, and on the 29th
of July he wrote sadly enough. "Although I have not been wanting in
industry, I have been wanting in invention, and have fallen back with
the book. Looming large before me is the Christmas work, and I can
hardly hope to do it without losing a number of _Our Friend_. I have
very nearly lost one already, and two would take one half of my whole
advance. This week I have been very unwell; am still out of sorts; and,
as I know from two days' slow experience, have a very mountain to climb
before I shall see the open country of my work." The three following
months brought hardly more favourable report. "I have not done my
number. This death of poor Leech (I suppose) has put me out woefully.
Yesterday and the day before I could do nothing; seemed for the time to
have quite lost the power; and am only by slow degrees getting back into
the track to-day." He rallied after this, and satisfied himself for a
while; but in February 1865 that formidable illness in his foot broke
out which, at certain times for the rest of his life, deprived him more
or less of his inestimable solace of bodily exercise. In April and May
he suffered severely; and after trying the sea went abroad for more
complete change. "Work and worry, without exercise, would soon make an
end of me. If I were not going away now, I should break down. No one
knows as I know to-day how near to it I have been."

That was the day of his leaving for France, and the day of his return
brought these few hurried words. "Saturday, tenth of June, 1865. I was
in the terrific Staplehurst accident yesterday, and worked for hours
among the dying and dead. I was in the carriage that did not go over,
but went off the line, and