as finished
in five weeks, and in hot haste, and for months again I was left
wondering what the outcome of it all was to be--whether Wraxall was
reading my story, or whether--oh, horror!--some other reader less kindly
disposed, and more austere and critical, and hard to please, had been
told off to sit in judgment upon my second MS.

[Illustration AT FORTY.]

I went back to chess for a distraction till the fate of that book was
pronounced or sealed--it was always chess in the hours of my distress
and anxiety--and I once again faced Charles Kenny, and once again
wondered if he knew, and how much he knew, whilst he was deep in his
king's gambit or his giuoco-piano; but he was not even aware that I had
sent in a second story, I learned afterwards. And then at last came the
judgment--the pleasant, if formal, notice from Marlborough Street that
the novel had been favourably reported upon by the reader, and that
Messrs. Hurst and Blackett would be pleased to see me at Marlborough
Street to talk the matter of its publication over with me. Ah! what a
letter that was!--what a surprise, after all!--what a good omen!

And some three months afterwards, at the end of the year 1854, my first
book--but my second novel--was launched into the reading world, and I
have hardly got over the feeling yet that I had actually a right to dub
myself a novelist!

[Illustration: MR. ROBINSON AT WORK.]

When the first three notices of the book appeared, wild dreams of a
brilliant future beset me. They were all favourable notices--too
favourable; but _John Bull_, _The Press_, and _Bell's Messenger_ (I
think they were the papers) scattered favourable notices
indiscriminately at that time. Presently the _Athenaeum_ sobered me a
little, but wound up with a kindly pat on the back, and the _Saturday
Review_, then in its seventh number, drenched me with vitriolic acid,
and brought me to a lower level altogether; and finally the _Morning
Herald_ blew a loud blast to my praise and glory--that last notice, I
believe, having been written by my old friend Sir Edward Clarke, then a
very young reviewer on the _Herald_ staff, with no dreams of becoming
Her Majesty's Solicitor-General just then! And the "House of Elmore"
actually paid its publishers' expenses, and left a balance, and brought
me in a little cheque, and thus my writing life began in sober earnest.

Told by the Colonel.

XI.

HOSKINS'S PETS.

BY W. L. ALDEN. ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. JACK