My First Book

In most cases, I believe, he simply 'conveyed' the matter; and if the thing was found out, he would be the first to deplore that he had 'forgotten the quotes.' He was a thirsty soul; he had no enthusiasm except for drink; he lived, in fact, only for drink; in order to get more money for drink he lived in one squalid room, and went in rags. One day he dismissed himself after an incident over which we may drop a veil. Some time after it was reported that he was attempting the stage as a pantomime super. But fate fell upon him; he became ill; he was carried to a hospital; and pneumonia opened for him the gates of the other world. He was made for better things.

[Illustration: JULIA]

Again, it was in the editor's small back room that I made the acquaintance of a young lady named Julia, whose biography I afterwards related. She was a bookbinder's accountant all the day, and in the evening she was a figurante at one of the theatres. I think she was not a very pretty girl, but she had good eyes--of the soft, sad kind, which seem to belong to those destined to die young; and in the evening, when she was dressed, she looked very well indeed, and was placed in the front.

To the editor's office came in multitudes seedy and poverty-stricken literary