I believe that I should have flung up authorship in despair, and never have had a first book, but for the chance remark of the dear old doctor who looked after my health in the days when I hadn't to pay my own doctor's bills. [Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM] He was talking about me one day in my father's private office, and I happened to be passing, and I heard him say, 'He's a nice lad--what a pity he scribbles!' Scribbles! the word burnt itself into my brain, it seared my heart, it brought the hot blood to my cheeks, and the indignant tears to my eyes. Was I not ready to write an acrostic at a moment's notice on the name of the sweetheart of any fellow who asked me to do it? Had I not written a poem on the fall of Napoleon, which my eldest sister had read aloud to her schoolfellows, and made them all mad with jealousy to think there wasn't a brother among the lot of them who could even rhyme decently? Had I not had stories rejected by the _Family Herald_, _All the Year Round_, and _Chambers's Journal_, and a letter on the subject of the crossing opposite St. Mark's Church, Hamilton Terrace, printed in the _Marylebone Mercury_? And was I to be dubbed a scribbler, and pitied for my weakness? It is nearly twenty years since those words were uttered, and my dear old doctor rests beyond the reach of all human ills, but I can hear them now. They have never ceased to ring in my ears as they rang that day. [Illustration: 'FAUST UP TO DATE'] My pride was wounded, my vanity was hurt, I was put upon my mettle. I registered a silent vow there and then that some day I would have a noble revenge on my friendly detractor, and make him confess that he was wrong when he said that it was a pity I scribbled. From that hour I set myself steadily to be an author. I wrote poetry by the mile, prose by the acre, and I sent it to every kind of periodical that I could find in the 'Post Office Directory.' I had to pass through years of rejection, but still I wrote on, and still I spent all my pocket-money on books, and postage-stamps, and paper. And at last the chance came. I was allowed to write paragraphs in the _Weekly Dispatch_ by a friend who was a real journalist, and had a column at his disposal to fill with gossip. After doing the work for a month for nothing, I had the whole column given to me, and one day I received my first guinea earned by scribbling. [Illustration: MR. SIMS'S DINNER PARTY] I was a proud man when I went out of the _Dispatch_ office that day with a sovereign and a shilling in my hand. I had forced the gates of the citadel at last. I had marched in with the honours of war, and I was marching out with the price of victory in my hand.