d, says Nordau. There's something in the
thought, perhaps. Similarly, determine to write a novel, and the mood
for novel-writing will be induced. I don't say I agree with the theory.
But it's worth a trial, and anyhow a novel is the easiest form in which
to make a public appeal, to make merchandise of your personality."

Adrian Grant's face wore its half-cynical smile as he said this, and
extending his hand to Henry, he added abruptly, as his manner was: "This
is your 'bus, I think; I must make for Kensington."

Henry shook hands at once with a hurried expression of thanks for his
friend's kindness, and jumped on the 'bus, while Mr. P. hailed a passing
hansom, and set out for his rooms in Gloucester Road.

Vague and confused were the thoughts of Henry as the 'bus lumbered its
way by historic Drury Lane and across Holborn, to his door in
Bloomsbury. A 'bus ride was still full of romance to him, and the
glimmering lamps of London were dearer to his mind than "the swing of
Pleiades"; every jingling cab that passed, every lighted window, was
touched with romance in his eyes. To make this wondrous City listen to
him--how the dream thrilled him! That the unknown thousands who flitted
through these world-famous streets, and lived behind these lighted
windows, might read what he wrote and know him for the writer--it was
worth trying for. Already he had seen his book brave in bright gilt,
shouldering the best of them in the book-shops of Holborn and the
Strand; he could read the reviews distinctly: noticed even the size and
style of the type they were set in, was gratified to find them so
remarkably favourable, and--"Wob'n Plice!" shouted the conductor.

Henry descended to asphalt, and was presently putting on his slippers in
his small sitting-room in a Bloomsbury boarding-house.

CHAPTER XX

THREE LETTERS, AND SOME OTHERS

ON the mantelpiece of his room, set on end against the little marble
clock which ignored the flight of time, Henry found three letters. He
examined the addresses and postmarks of each, and saw at a glance that
one was from his sister Dora, another from Flo, and the third from Edgar
Winton. For a moment he hesitated, undecided which to open first. Home
for him had a far-off call by now, and it was with the vague sense of a
dream that was past that he read Dora's fortnightly letters. Flo--hers
was a more recent influence--and from a fascinating i