ntented to live?" etc.... Such homilies would have been maddening; he was
successful, I was not; I knew there was not much in him, _un feu de
paille_, no more, but what would I not have done and given for that
_feu de paille_? So I was obliged to conceal my real motives for
desiring a duel, and I spoke strenuously of the gravity of the insult and
the necessity of retribution. But Marshall was obdurate. "Insult?" he said.
"He hit you with his hand, you hit him with the champagne bottle; you can't
have him out after that, there is nothing to avenge, you wiped out the
insult yourself; if you had not struck him with the champagne bottle the
case would be different."

We went out to dine, we went to the theatre, and after the theatre we went
home and aestheticised till three in the morning. I spoke no more of the
duel, I was sick of it; luck, I saw, was against me, and I let Marshall
have his way. He showed his usual tact, a letter was drawn up in which my
friend withdrew the blow of his hand, I withdrew the blow of the bottle,
and the letter was signed by Marshall and two other gentlemen.

Hypocritical reader, you draw your purity garments round you, you say, "How
very base;" but I say unto you remember how often you have longed, if you
are a soldier in her Majesty's army, for war,--war that would bring every
form of sorrow to a million fellow-creatures, and you longed for all this
to happen, because it might bring your name into the _Gazette_.
Hypocritical reader, think not too hardly of me; hypocritical reader, think
what you like of me, your hypocrisy will alter nothing; in telling you of
my vices I am only telling you of your own; hypocritical reader, in showing
you my soul I am showing you your own; hypocritical reader, exquisitely
hypocritical reader, you are my brother, I salute you.

Day passed over day: I lived in that horrible lodging; I continued to
labour at my novel; it seemed an impossible task--defeat glared at me from
every corner of that frouzy room. My English was so bad, so thin,--stupid
colloquialisms out of joint with French idiom. I learnt unusual words and
stuck them up here and there; they did not mend the style. Self-reliance
had been lost in past failures; I was weighed down on every side, but I
struggled to bring the book somehow to a close. Nothing mattered to me, but
this one thing. To put an end to the landlady's cheating, and to bind
myself to remain at home, I entered into an arrangement with