Having permitted myself this moment of “comic relief,” I proceed to state the plan which I propose to follow in the following pages. I disclaim any title to the office of auto-biographer. I am nobody. My own twenty years’ experience is nothing. The interest of my reminiscences centres entirely in those others among whom my lot was cast. So, having in the three following chapters described the stages over which I drifted into journalism, I shall in the succeeding chapters abandon any chronological arrangement of narrative, and group in each section certain events, individuals, enterprises, and incidents. And the interest I hope to enhance by the introduction of incidents and anecdotes that have come under my personal observation and been uttered in my own hearing. As I essay to challenge my memory of that pleasant past, the first results are not satisfactory. The pictures are confused in composition and blurred in general effect. After a little patient waiting—much in the manner of our late friend Stead in Julia’s bureau—the blurred pictures acquire other characteristics. The second effect is kaleidoscopic. The retrospect is full of movement and colour. At last the kaleidoscopic effects become mere atmosphere, and one by one, or in groups, the _dramatis personæ_ take their places on the stage. And the curtain rises on the play. CHAPTER II DRIFTING INTO IT NOWADAYS, I understand, there are schools to educate young gentlemen for the Press. Indeed, in my own time a school of journalism was founded by a man who had taken to the calling quite late in life. But I have never heard that the seminary in question turned out any pressman of eminence or even of uncommon aptitude. The founder of the singular academy was a Mr. David Anderson, about whom and about whose school I may have something to say in another chapter.