that was beautiful or curious, and
had indeed taken to publishing from that rare motive in a
publisher,--the love of books, rather than the love of money. He was
aiming to make his little shop the rallying-point of all the young
talent of the day, and as young talent has never too many publishers on
the look-out for it, his task was not difficult, though it was one of
those real services to literature which such publishers and booksellers
have occasionally done in our literary history, with but scant
acknowledgment.

Henry was pleased to find that he looked upon him to make one of his
little band of youth; and as the publisher understood the art of
encouragement, Henry already felt it had been worth while to come to
London just to see him. He knew the editor to whom Henry had a letter
and volunteered him another. The afternoon would be the best time;
meanwhile, they must lunch together. He smiled when Henry suggested the
Cheshire Cheese. Henry had a sort of vague idea that literary men could
hardly think of taking their meals anywhere else. There had been an
attempt to bring it into fashion again, the publisher said; but it had
come to nothing--though he, for one, loved those old chop-houses, with
their tankards, and their sanded floors. So to the Cheshire Cheese they
repaired, and drank to a long friendship in foaming pewters of porter.

"Alas!" said Henry, "we are fallen on smaller times. Once it was 'the
poet's pint of port.' Now we must be content with the poetaster's
half-a-pint of porter!"

"You must come to my rooms to-night," said the publisher, "and be
introduced to some of our young men. I have one or two of our older
critics coming too."

Henry's fortune was evidently made.

He found the editor in a dim back room at the top of a high building, so
lost in a world of books and dust that at first Henry could hardly make
him out, writing by a window with his back to the door. Then an alert
head turned round to him, and a rather peevish gesture bade him be
seated, while the editor resumed his work. This hardly came up to
Henry's magnificent dreams of the editorial dignity. Perhaps he had a
vague idea that editors lived in palaces, and sat on thrones.

Presently the editor put down his pen with an exclamation of
satisfaction; and the first impression of peevishness vanished in the
cordiality with which he now turned to his visitor.

"You must excuse my absorption. It was a rather tough piece of
proof-readi