gn our form of agreement now?'

So Henry perpended legally on the form of agreement, and, finding
nothing in it seriously to offend the legal sense, signed it with due
ceremony.

'Can you correct the proofs instantly, if I send them?' Mr. Winter asked
at parting.

'Yes,' said Henry, who had never corrected a proof in his life. 'Are you
in a hurry?'

'Well,' Mr. Winter replied, 'I had meant to inaugurate the Satin Library
with another book. In fact, I have already bought five books for it. But
I have a fancy to begin it with yours. I have a fancy, and when I have
a fancy, I--I generally act on it. I like the title. It's a very pretty
title. I'm taking the book on the title. And, really, in these days a
pretty, attractive title is half the battle.'

Within two months, _Love in Babylon_, by Henry S. Knight, was published
as the first volume of Mr. Onions Winter's Satin Library, and Henry saw
his name in the papers under the heading 'Books Received.' The sight
gave him a passing thrill, but it was impossible for him not to observe
that in all essential respects he remained the same person as before.
The presence of six author's copies of _Love in Babylon_ at Dawes Road
alone indicated the great step in his development. One of these copies
he inscribed to his mother, another to his aunt, and another to Sir
George. Sir George accepted the book with a preoccupied air, and made no
remark on it for a week or more. Then one morning he said: 'By the way,
Knight, I ran through that little thing of yours last night. Capital!
Capital! I congratulate you. Take down this letter.'

Henry deemed that Sir George's perspective was somewhat awry, but he
said nothing. Worse was in store for him. On the evening of that same
day he bought the _Whitehall Gazette_ as usual to read in the train, and
he encountered the following sentences:

'TWADDLE IN SATIN.

'Mr. Onions Winter's new venture, the Satin Library, is a pretty
enough thing in its satinesque way. The _format_ is pleasant, the
book-marker voluptuous, the binding Arty-and-Crafty. We cannot,
however, congratulate Mr. Winter on the literary quality of the
first volume. Mr. Henry S. Knight, the author of _Love in Babylon_
(2s.), is evidently a beginner, but he is a beginner from whom
nothing is to be expected. That he has a certain gross facility in
the management of sentimental narrative we will not deny. It i