ipt of a critical
work, which I had written while at Liverpool. Somebody had recommended
that I should submit it to a certain great publishing house, and I took
it in person. At the door of the office I was told to write my own name,
and the name of the person whom I wished to see, and to state the nature
of my business. I did so, and the boy who took my message brought back
word that I might leave my manuscript for consideration. It seemed to me
that somebody might have seen me for a minute, but I had expected too
much. The manuscript was carefully tied up in brown paper, and so I left
it.

[Illustration: I LEFT IT]

After waiting three torturing weeks for the decision of the publishers,
I made bold to call again. At the same little box at the door of the
office I had once more to fill up the same little document. The boy took
it in, and I was left to sit on his table, to look at the desk which he
had been whittling away with his penknife, to wait and to tremble. After
a time I heard a footstep returning. I thought it might be the publisher
or the editor of the house. It was the boy back again. He had a pile of
loose sheets of white paper in his hands. They were the sheets of my
book. 'The editor's compliments, sir, and--thank you,' said the boy, and
my manuscript went sprawling over the table. I gathered it up, tucked it
as deep as possible into the darkness, under the wings of my Inverness
cape, and went downstairs ashamed, humiliated, crushed, and
broken-spirited. Not quite that, either, for I remember that, as I got
to the fresh air at the door, my gorge rose within me, and I cried in my
heart, 'By God! you shall---- ' and something proud and vain.

[Illustration: drawing by Geo. Hutchinson

signed: with Kindest regards,

Hall Caine]

I dare say it was all right and proper and in good order. The book was
afterwards published, and I think it sold well. I hardly know whether I
ought to say that the editor should have shown me more courtesy. It was
all a part of the anarchy of things which Mr. Hardy considers the rule
of life. But the sequel is worth telling. That editor became my personal
friend. He is dead, and he was a good and able man. Of course he
remembered nothing of this incident, and I never poisoned one hour of
our intercourse by telling him how, when I was young and a word of cheer
would have buoyed me up, he made me drink the waters of Marah. And three
times since that day the publishing house I sp