sport, which as a boy in the country I had ample opportunity for
indulging, and of an interrupted training for the Church--'twixt then
and now there is an eventful gap which, if you don't mind, we won't
sadden each other by filling--Let us fill our glasses and our pipes
instead; and, having failed so entirely myself, I will give you minute
directions how to succeed in literature."

Mr. Gerard's discourse on how to succeed in literature was partly
practical and partly ironical, and probably too technical to interest
the general reader, who has no intention of being a great or a little
writer, and who perhaps has already found Mr. Gerard's previous
discourse a little too special in its character. Suffice it that Henry
heard much to remember, and much to laugh over, and that Mr. Gerard
concluded with a practical offer of kindness.

"I don't know how much use it may be to you," he said; "but if you care
to have it, I should be very glad to give you a letter to the editor of
_The Fleet Street Review_. He has, I think, a certain regard for me, and
he might send you a book to do now and again. At all events, it would be
something."

Henry embraced the offer gratefully; and it occurred to him that in a
day or two's time there was a five days' excursion running from Tyre to
London and back, for half-a-guinea. Why not take it, and expend his last
five pounds in a stimulating glimpse of the city he some day hoped to
conquer? He could then see his friend the publisher, present his letter
to the editor, and perhaps bring home with him some little work and a
renewed stock of hopes.

So, before they parted that night, Mr. Gerard wrote him the letter.

CHAPTER XXXIII

"THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE"

Thus it was that, all unexpectedly, Henry found himself set down one
autumn morning at the homeless hour of a quarter-to-seven, in Euston
station. He was going to stay in some street off the Strand, and
chartered a hansom to take him there. Few great cities are impressive in
the neighbourhood of their railway termini. You enter them, so to speak,
by the back door; and London waves no banners of bright welcome to the
stranger who first enters it by the Euston Road.

But there was an interesting church presently, and on a dust-cart close
by Henry read "Vestry of St. Pancras."

"Can that be the St. Pancras' Church," he said to himself, "where Mary
Wollstonecraft lies buried, and Browning was married?"

Then as they drove