"Before going into details, so far as may be necessary, I cannot help asking you to consider calmly and dispassionately my exact condition compared with that of my fellow-creatures as a whole. In my struggles to resist in the past, I have at times felt as if wrestling in the folds of a python. I again sinned, then, with a youth and his friend. Oddly enough, discovery followed through a man who was actuated by a feeling of revenge for a strictly right act on my part. The lads refused to state more than the truth, and this did not satisfy the man, and a _third_ lad was introduced, who was prepared to say anything. This was not all; some twelve or fifteen more boys made similar accusations! The general belief, in consequence, was that I had committed 'nameless' crimes in all directions, _ad lib_. If you were to ask me for an explanation of the action of all these boys beyond the _third_, who, of course, had some special inducements, I can offer none. They may have thought that the original trio were regarded rather in the light of _heroes_; why should _they_ not be heroes, too? "I might well feel crushed under such a load of accusations, but that does not excuse the incredible folly of my conduct. I denied alike the modicum of truth and the mass of lying, and went off to America. However, as time passed on and my mind got into a proper state, I felt that the truth must be told some time or other. I accordingly wrote from America to the proper quarter a full confession of my sin with regard to the two youths who had told merely the truth, at the same time pointing out the falsehood of all the rest of the accusations. "I remained in America six years, and actually made money, so that I could return to England with a small capital. I was also under a promise to my three sisters (all older than myself) that I would return in their lifetime. My programme was to purchase a small, light business in London, and quietly earn my living; at the same time making my presence known to no one. I _did_ buy such a business, got swindled in the most clever way, and lost every farthing I possessed in the world! I had to make my plight known to old friends who all either gave or lent me money. Still my position was a very precarious one. I tried an insurance agency, one of the last resources of the educated destitute, but soon found out that I was unfitted for work in which _impudence_ is a prime factor. Then an extraordinary stroke of good fortune took place; almost simultaneously I began to get a few music pupils, and literary work in connection with a good musical journal.