were advertised as being 'from original negatives'--'messing about' the _Catholic Hour_ elegantly denominates that portion of my purgatory. Well I admit it was messy, and insanitary within the meaning of the act too--but then you see I was working for a Catholic. I did journalism, reported inquests for eighteen pence. I wrote for magazines. I wrote books. I invented a score of things. Experts used to tell me that there was a fortune waiting for me in these inventions: that any capitalist would help me to exploit them. They were small people themselves, these experts,--small, in that they were not obliged to pay income tax: they had no capital to invest: but they recommended me, and advised me, to apply to lots of people who had:--gave me their names and addresses, dictated the letters of application which I wrote. I trusted them, for they were 'business men' and I knew that I was not of that species. I quieted my repugnance; and I laid invention after invention, scheme after scheme, work after work, before capitalist after capitalist. I was assured that it was correct to do so. I despised and detested myself for doing it. I scoured the round world for a 'patron.' These were my 'begging letters.'--At that time I was totally ignorant of the fact that there are thousands of people who live by inviting patronage; and that most of them really have nothing to be patronized: while the rest are cranks. I knew that I had done such and such a new thing: that I had exhausted myself and my resources in doing it: that my deed was approved by specialists who thoroughly knew the subject. I was very ashamed to ask for help to make my invention profitable: but I was quite honest--generous: I always offered a share in the profits--always. I did not ask for, and I did not expect, something for nothing. I had done so much; and I wanted so little: but I did want that little,--for my creditors,--for giving ease to some slaves of my acquaintance. I was a fool, a sanguine ignorant abject fool! I never learned by experience. I still kept on. A haggard shabby shy priestly-visaged individual, such as I was, could not hope to win the confidence of men who daily were approached by splendid plausible cadgers. My requests were too diffident, too modest. I made the mistake of appealing to brains rather than to bowels, to reason rather than to sentiment. I wanted hundreds, or thousands--say two: others wanted and got tens and hundreds of thousands. A cotton-waste merchant could not risk fifteen-hundred on my work, although he liked me personally and said that he believed in the value of my inventions: but, at the same time, he cheerfully lost twelve-thousand in a scheme for 'ventilated boots.' I myself was wearing ventilated boots, then: but the ventilated-boot man wore resplendent patent leather Cardinals' secretaries could live at the rate of two-thousand-two-hundred-and-ninety pounds a year and borrow three-thousand-and-sixty pounds, on a salary