That "The Circus" would not have made a fairly popular book at the time it was first submitted for publication, it seems to me, there is a good deal of reason to believe was a fallacy. Not a couple of years afterward a collection of random articles in general character not dissimilar to "The Circus," by another young man of greatly likable nature, but then practically unknown outside the circle of his personal friends, was in some idiosyncratic moment accepted, and directly won its way to a very considerable sale and a very fair degree of fame. About then, too, along came another book of pasted-up "papers" (about which I happen to know a good deal), which after having been rejected by nearly every publishing house in America was taken in a spirit of generous friendliness by a publisher of much enterprise, began almost at once to sell as well as a fairly successful novel, has been numerous times reprinted, and in the way of luck brought its altogether obscure author something of a name. And just now the light, personal, journalistic-literary essay is having quite a brisk vogue. If Joyce stood to-day merely where he stood five years ago "The Circus," without doubt, would be snapped up by anybody. More; some publisher's "scout" very likely would get a "hunch" about the probability of Joyce's having sufficient material in his scrap-book for such a volume and "go after" it even before Joyce had submitted it to the house of this fellow's connection. But, alas! for "ifs" and "might have beens." Fair fortune did not attend "The Circus." Failing of placing the book with any large house having an extensive and organized machinery for carrying it to a wide audience, Joyce welcomed the opportunity of having the book published by his friend Laurence J. Gomme. Mr. Gomme had been for several years the proprietor of the Little Book Shop Around the Corner, at number two East Twenty-ninth Street, directly across the street from the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, so altogether charming in its Old World effect, nestling in a tiny green spot hemmed in by high buildings, and known to fame and legend as the Little Church Around the Corner. This was a shop conducted in excellent taste, a sort of salon for pleasant persons of literary breeding, and its "circulars" were written by no less an advertising man than Richard Le Gallienne. In addition to selling the best books of other publishers, Mr. Gomme (at a good deal of risk to himself) served the cause of good literature by himself issuing now and then a volume of a nature close to his heart.