h but little taste, for he had the good sense to doubt whether his
talent lay in the direction of creative work, as the writing of fiction
is so comically miscalled. But the thing had to be done, and as well now
as again. At first progress was slow, as book-reviewing for the
_Watchman_ kept him busy most nights at home, while sub-editorial duties
filled out all too amply his office hours. There was agony of mind in
the writing of the early chapters, and he had not gone far when the
rupture with Flo came to disturb his thoughts and to agitate his
feelings. But it had the effect of setting him almost savagely to his
novel again, and gloomy was the atmosphere he created in his chapters.
It was a romance of town and country life, and was entitled
provisionally, "Grey Life."

For a while after Flo's exit from his life the book went ahead rapidly;
then he set it aside almost afraid to go on after reading what he had
written; it was so savage, so unlike anything he had ever hoped to
write. If at that time he could have been impersonal enough in his
criticism, he would have seen at a glance that Adrian Grant was not only
responsible for his having essayed the task, but that he had projected
something of his pessimism into the mind of the writer.

The unfolding young editor, who had meant to write such a scathing
review of "Ashes," would have been as incensed by the unhealthy gloom,
the wintry sadness, of "Grey Life." Of course, it is to be remembered
that the said young editor had never delivered the terrible slating he
intended to devote to Adrian Grant's popular work, but he had at least
thought it, and believed it would have been justified, even after he had
written something different. Though the morbidity of sex was entirely
absent from "Grey Life," it contained a good deal that was as deserving
of ban as anything in "Ashes."

When Mr. P. returned in the late autumn of the year from his sojourn in
the South, he asked to be shown the manuscript, incomplete as it was;
and pronounced it good.

"You've stuck almost in sight of the end," he said.

"Wrecked in port," replied Henry, laughing.

"Not quite wrecked, but floating rudderless. There's no reason why this
shouldn't hit--if you want to make a hit. But it's generally books that
are published without intent to 'boom' that stumble into success. At
least, it's been so with mine."

"But I'm uneasy about it all. Don't you think the picture intolerably
grey?"

"None to