ha'
thought that cheap at the money.'

''Storted by threats,' said the landlord.

'Take another,' cried Paul, 'and go to bed. You'll be paid in the
morning, and you can stick up "To Let" as soon as you like. I'm off to
the Continent.'

There was still a cab fare in Paul's pocket when he awoke and dressed in
the morning, and he booked away to the publisher's office and received
his cheque. Then away to the bank, and away from the bank with
fifteen ten-pound notes of the Bank of England. Then a breakfast at
a restaurant, and a pint of champagne to drink his own health in--the
first wine tasted for nearly five years. Next to 'my uncle's' to redeem
the dressing-bag and the dress-suit, and next home to stagger the
landlord with that pile of wealth. Then to pack, singing; to drive back
to town; to lunch late after the purchase of a suit of reach-me-downs,
new hat, boots, gloves, and paletot; and last, away to the Continental
train for a first look at Paris. And all the while it was richly comic
to himself to feel how he exulted, and to say within doors demurely
to the shopman, to the waiter, the ticket clerk, the porter: 'I am an
author, sir, an accepted author, with the first fruits of my first book
in my pocket I am on the way to Paris and distinction.' The four years
of lost prospect and horizon looked nothing, less than nothing. But the
Channel waters were rough, and he was chilled by the solemn gentlemen
who sat battened down with basins in their laps, turning green and
yellow in the sickly light; and the railway journey beyond was cold and
uncomfortable, and Paris in the gray fog of a late October morning
was less gay than he had expected. What little he knew of the language
seemed to be recognised by the natives of the land, but what they had to
say to him was as rapid as the clatter of a running boy's hoop-stick on
a row of railings, and as intelligible. An English-speaking tout seized
him, and he was grateful to be decoyed into a dirty hotel on the other
side of the river, where people understood him more or less when he
asked a question. Here he entered himself in the guest-book, and under
the head of 'Profession 'wrote the world 'Literature 'with great pride.
He ate his cutlets and chipped potatoes at breakfast with an unwonted
relish, in spite of a revolting table-cloth, encrusted with mustard
and spilt sauces, and blue with wine-stains, over which salt had been
spilled to restore the whiteness of the fabric in