"Well, without entering into questions of the past, I hope you will give me to understand that, at any rate, in the future, you will not contribute to its pages." "Why?" "Is it necessary to explain? Are we not both clergymen?" "Are you suggesting that a clergyman should pay occasional visits to a debtor's prison rather than contribute to the pages of a comic paper?" "It is not a question of a comic paper, but of this particular comic paper." The curate looked intently at the vicar. He had dark eyes which, at times, were curiously full of meaning. Mr. Harding felt that they were very full of meaning then. He so sympathised with the man, so realised the burdens which he had to bear, that he never found himself alone with him without becoming conscious of a sensation which was almost shyness. At that moment, as the curate continued to fixedly regard him, he was not only shy, but ashamed. "Mr. Harding you are not here of your own initiative." "That is so. But that will not help you. If you take my advice, of two evils you will choose what I believe to be the lesser." "And that is?" "You will have no further connection with this paper." "Mr. Harding, look here." Going to a cupboard which was in a corner of the room, the curate threw the door wide open. Within were shelves. On the shelves were papers. The cupboard seemed full of them, shelf above shelf. "You see these. They are MSS.--my MSS. They have travelled pretty well all round the world. They have been rejected everywhere. I have paid postage for them which I could very ill afford, only to have them sent back upon my hands, at last, for good. I show them to you merely because I wish you to understand that I did not apply to the editor of _Skittles_ until I had been rejected by practically every other editor the world contains." The Vicar fidgetted on his chair. "Surely, now that reading has become almost universal, it is always possible to find an opening for good work." "For good work, possibly. Though, even then, I suspect that the thing is not so easy as you imagine. But mine is not good work. Very often it is not even good hack work, as good hack work goes. I may have been capable of good work once. But the capacity, if it ever existed, has gone--crushed perhaps by the burdens which have crushed me. Nowadays I am only too glad to do any work which will bring in for us a few extra crumbs of bread." "I sympathise with you, with all my heart."