that at last the gracious answer that he has so longed for awaits his arrival, and that the bright opening at length lies before him that is to lead him on to fortune, if not to fame, more than the five hundred and forty-six rival applicants know that their addresses have been rejected. As yet the day is marked with neither white bean nor black, and so let us hope, with this mighty stream pouring on and on and on down the great thoroughfares of the city, that the white beans may outnumber the black when the day is done, and that what is lost here may be gained there; for we are of them, brethren of theirs, and joyous hopes of this kind cost little, while, at least, they harden not the heart. And so the whole city, with its hopes and fears, its life and its death, moved out under the November haze that morning, and with it, as the central figure in the vast panorama, he whose stray leaves, it is hoped, may prove at least of passing interest to the many of whom he is one. My special point of attraction that day was the office of _The Packet_, “a monthly journal of polite literature,” to quote the prospectus, which was supported by “the ablest pens of both hemispheres,” as the same prospectus modestly admitted. As at this time I was a pretty constant contributor to _The Packet_, I suppose that, according to the prospectus, I was fully entitled to take my stand among “the ablest pens of both hemispheres,” whether I chose to insist on my literary rank or not. And as I contributed occasionally to other journals which were respectively, according to their several prospectuses, “the leading weekly,” “the greatest daily,” “the giant monthly,” “the only quarterly,” “the great art journal,” etc., there could not possibly be any doubt as to my literary position. For all that, I confess I was still among the callow brood, and fear that, if any person had referred to me in public as “a literary man,” the literary man would have blushed very violently, and felt as small as a titmouse. Still, I had that delicious feeling of the dawning of hope and the glorious uncertainty of a great ambition that always attend and encourage the first steps of a new career, whatever be its character. It was natural enough, then, that I should step out lustily among my fellows, my head high in air, and my heart higher still, drinking in the inspiration of the morning, piercing the golden mist with the eye of hope, feeling a young life throbbing eagerly within me, feeling a mysterious brotherhood with all men, gliding as through a fairy city in a gilded dream.