ork is concerned 'Pierre and His People' may
be likened to a new city built upon the ashes of an old one. Let me
explain. While I was in Australia I began a series of short stories and
sketches of life in Canada which I called 'Pike Pole Sketches on the
Madawaska'. A very few of them were published in Australia, and I
brought with me to England in 1889 about twenty of them to make into a
volume. I told Archibald Forbes, the great war correspondent, of my wish
for publication, and asked him if he would mind reading the sketches and
stories before I approached a publisher. He immediately consented, and
one day I brought him the little brown bag containing the tales.

A few days afterwards there came an invitation to lunch, and I went to
Clarence Gate, Regent's Park, to learn what Archibald Forbes thought of
my tales. We were quite merry at luncheon, and after luncheon, which
for him was a glass of milk and a biscuit, Forbes said to me, "Those
stories, Parker--you have the best collection of titles I have ever
known." He paused. I understood. To his mind the tales did not live up
to their titles. He hastily added, "But I am going to give you a letter
of introduction to Macmillan. I may be wrong." My reply was: "You need
not give me a letter to Macmillan unless I write and ask you for it."

I took my little brown bag and went back to my comfortable rooms in an
old-fashioned square. I sat down before the fire on this bleak winter's
night with a couple of years' work on my knee. One by one I glanced
through the stories and in some cases read them carefully, and one by
one I put them in the fire, and watched them burn. I was heavy at heart,
but I felt that Forbes was right, and my own instinct told me that my
ideas were better than my performance--and Forbes was right. Nothing was
left of the tales; not a shred of paper, not a scrap of writing. They
had all gone up the chimney in smoke. There was no self-pity. I had a
grim kind of feeling regarding the thing, but I had no regrets, and I
have never had any regrets since. I have forgotten most of the titles,
and indeed all the stories except one. But Forbes and I were right; of
that I am sure.

The next day after the arson I walked for hours where London was
busiest. The shop windows fascinated me; they always did; but that day I
seemed, subconsciously, to be looking for something. At last I found it.
It was a second-hand shop in Covent Garden. In the window there was
the unif