prize already in your
possession, tell me that?"

"It is not that kind of fortune," I answered, "it is another. I have had
my first story accepted. It is in print. Look."

I handed him the paper. He spread it out upon the engraving board before
him.

"Ah, that's better," he said, "that's better. Charlie," he turned to the
red-headed man, who had seated himself listlessly in the one easy-chair
the room contained, "come here."

The red-headed man rose and wandered towards us. "Let me introduce you
to Mr. Paul Kelver, our new fellow servant. Our lady has accepted him.
He has just been elected; his first story is in print."

The red-haired man stretched out his long thin hand. "I have thirty
years of fame," said the red-haired man--"could I say world-wide?"

He turned for confirmation to old Deleglise, who laughed. "I think you
can."

"If I could give it you would you exchange with me--at this moment?"

"You would be a fool if you did," he went on. "One's first success,
one's first victory! It is the lover's first kiss. Fortune grows old and
wrinkled, frowns more often than she smiles. We become indifferent to
her, quarrel with her, make it up again. But the joy of her first kiss
after the long wooing! Burn it into your memory, my young friend, that
it may live with you always!"

He strolled away. Old Deleglise took up the parable.

"Ah, yes; one's first success, Paul! Laugh, my boy, cry! Shut yourself
up in your room, shout, dance! Throw your hat into the air and cry
hurrah! Make the most of it, Paul. Hug it to your heart, think of it,
dream of it. This is the finest hour of your life, my boy. There will
never come another like it--never!"

He crossed the studio, and taking from its nail a small oil painting,
brought it over and laid it on the board beside my paper. It was a
fascinating little picture, painted with that exquisite minutiae and
development of detail that a newer school was then ridiculing: as though
Art had but one note to her voice. The dead figure of an old man lay
upon a bed. A child had crept into the darkened room, and supporting
itself by clutching tightly at the sheet, was gazing with solemn
curiosity upon the white, still face.

"That was mine," said old Deleglise. "It was hung in the Academy
thirty-six years ago, and bought for ten guineas by a dentist at Bury
St. Edmunds. He went mad a few years later and died in a lunatic asylum.
I had never lost sight of it, and the executors were