I had not long to wait. The next morning, as I was on my way to the office, I chanced upon a contents bill of the _Express_, and there, with dazzled eyes, the testimony of which I could hardly believe, I read the announcement that the paper of the day contained a letter by "A Bedesman." And here I must make a humiliating confession. The price of the paper was a penny, and at that particular moment I discovered that I had not a penny in the world. My weekly pocket-money was sixpence, and it generally went at one of the old bookstalls in the market before the week was far advanced. But I could not face the day before me with the dreadful uncertainty weighing upon my soul as to whether another person might not have adopted the same signature as myself, and whether, consequently, I might not be labouring under a fond delusion. I turned and fled home (fortunately I always started for work in good time), and asked my mother to lend me the penny I needed. In a broken whisper I confided to her the fact that I believed there was really a letter of mine in that morning's _Express_. I got my penny, and in a few minutes I was feasting my eyes upon that sight--dearer than any other the world can show to the young literary aspirant--my first printed composition. I had then just entered my fifteenth year. Not one writer in a thousand has stopped at a first book, and not one newspaper contributor in a million has stopped at a first letter to the editor. Like much better people, I had made the discovery that whilst my opinions regarding the Genius of Shakespeare, the Art of Fiction, and the Character of Cromwell were not wanted by anybody, there were some questions cropping up, as it were, at my own door, about which I might, if I liked, give an opinion that some persons at all events would think worth printing. In short, I was enabled to see that though I could not fly, I might at least walk. How eagerly I turned to profit the discovery I had thus made need not be told here. For the moment my ambitious designs were laid on one side. I no longer dreamed of an Epic that should rival "Paradise Lost" or a novel that might outshine "Vanity Fair"; but I prepared to discuss the local questions of the hour, the site of a post office, the opening of a hospital, the grievance of some small public official, with the zest which I had only felt hitherto when dealing with the great literary and social problems, to the discussion of which my untrained intelligence could contribute nothing of value. What I wrote on such topics as those I have named I cannot pretend to remember; but there must have been some little promise in my contributions to the _Express_, for one memorable day, when I got home from work, my father told me that he had received a visit from Mr. Marshall, the chief proprietor of that paper, and that this visit closely concerned me. Mr. Marshall had inquired as to my age and occupation, and having suggested