to him that publishing was a very respectable
business when fairly and properly carried on, and not one that ought to
weigh heavy upon a man at the last like the record of a career of
successful usury or burgling.

He shook his heavy head. "Yes, yes," he groaned; "but Meeson's is a
company and you are talking of private firms. They are straight, most of
them; far too straight, I used always to say. But you don't know
Meeson's--you don't know the customs of the trade at Meeson's."

Augusta reflected that she knew a good deal more about Meeson's than
she liked.

"Listen," he said, with desperate energy, sitting up upon the sail, "and
I will tell you--I must tell you."

Asterisks, so dear to the heart of the lady novelist, will best represent
the confession that followed; words are not equal to the task.

* * * * *

Augusta listened with rising hair, and realised how very trying must be
the life of a private confessor.

"Oh, please stop!" she said faintly, at last. "I can't bear it--I
can't, indeed."

"Ah!" he said, as he sunk back exhausted. "I thought that when you
understood the customs at Meeson's you would feel for me in my present
position. Think, girl, think what I must suffer, with such a past,
standing face to face with an unknown future!"

Then came a silence.

"Take him away! Take him away!" suddenly shouted out Mr. Meeson, staring
around him with frightened eyes.

"Who?" asked Augusta; "who?"

"Him--the tall, thin man, with the big book! I know him; he used to be
Number 25--he died years ago. He was a very clever doctor; but one of his
patients brought a false charge against him and ruined him, so he had to
take to writing, poor devil! We made him edit a medical
encyclopaedia--twelve volumes for L300, to be paid on completion; and he
went mad and died at the eleventh volume. So, of course, we did not pay
his widow anything. And now he's come for me--I know he has. Listen! he's
talking! Don't you hear him? Oh, Heavens! He says that I am going to be
an author, and he is going to publish for me for a thousand years--going
to publish on the quarter-profit system, with an annual account, the
usual trade deductions, and no vouchers. Oh! oh! Look!--they are all
coming!--they are pouring out of the Hutches! they are going to murder
me!--keep them off! keep them off!" and he howled and beat the air with
his hands.

Augusta, utterly overcome by this awful sight, knelt down