Tame ending, was it not, to such a dramatic situation, and tamer still the fact that my only sensation was one of satisfaction that I had got the money. I joined my gilder, who was, I regret to say, distinctly the worse for liquor, having had, as he said, no option but to beguile the long afternoon by taking eight special Scotches for the "good of the house." However I explained the situation to him, handed him his money, and made haste home feeling that if ever I had earned fifteen shillings in my life I had done so on this occasion. In conclusion of this episode, I regret to have to add that my friend who had recommended me to this "genial sportsman," as I heard somebody call him, had the grievous misfortune to lose £50 of hardly earned money due to him from the same merry gentleman. I cannot trust myself to comment upon this behaviour which, alas, is all too common among a certain class who habitually live beyond their means and regard the poor tradesman as fair game. If they can only borrow from him as well their delight seems proportionately heightened. And now I had a sudden gleam of joy, a bit of pleasure so keen that it made me forget for the time all my troubles. I had a story accepted, and it appeared in print. Many of my readers will know what that meant, but I will not believe that any one could have been more delighted than I was. Not that I built up any airy structures of hope, of fame and fortune as an author upon it, but I could not help feeling that it was wonderful how I, without any of the usual educational aids, in competition with the mighty army of able writers ever assaulting harassed editors in London, and under the stress of such stern life-conditions as mine, should have accomplished such a feat. True it was only in a boy's paper, _Young England_, true that the pay was only a guinea, and that I waited six months for it, but the golden glorious fact remained that I saw myself in print. Perhaps it is strange that I did not then neglect the business which yielded me nothing but debt and disappointment, and throw all my energies into this new channel. A profound distrust of my own abilities, and an idea that this was just a bit of curious good luck may possibly account for my apathy, but whatever it was I know that for a long time I was content to rest upon my laurels in the literary arena and to grub along in the shop. The verb I have used just expresses it; I grubbed and got ever deeper and deeper into the mire, and to the well-meant advice of my friends as to why on earth I did not give up the unequal struggle and go bankrupt before it killed me, I could only render the same answer as before, that bankruptcy spelt workhouse because I should inevitably lose my job.