To Payn I was, of course, merely a very humble contributor to the journal he edited; but I was received in a most friendly and cordial fashion, and found, much to my delight and not a little to my astonishment, that the brilliant man of letters before me was eager to recognise the bond which a common calling created between us. There was no air of patronage in his treatment of my modest proposals. He did what he could to make me feel that we stood on an equality. This was Payn all over. Throughout his life he was one of those men of letters who, whilst never sinking into the boon companionship of Bohemia, show their respect for the calling they have adopted by treating all the other members of that calling with an unaffected respect and cordiality. Such men are the salt of our order. Payn's generosity to young and unknown writers has been attested by many men who in later life attained eminence, to whom he gave the first helping hand in their long struggle against fate. When, in later days, I read these tributes to the splendid and unselfish service which Payn had rendered to English literature, I always recalled him as I saw him in the dingy office in Paternoster Row on that day in 1868, when he first gave me the right hand of fellowship. I shall have much to say of him hereafter. At this point I need only record the fact that I became a frequent contributor to _Chambers's Journal_, writing for it a series of articles, descriptive of the work of the journalist, that were afterwards republished in a volume called "Briefs and Papers." In this little book I collaborated with my old friend and schoolfellow, Mr. W. H. Cooke, who was the author of the chapters describing the experiences of a young barrister.