I forgave Payn as I forgave Besant. Both men were as genial as they were eminent, and but for the circumstances of illustrating their stories I might not have enjoyed their acquaintanceship. I also illustrated Payn's most charming story, "The Talk of the Town," for _Cornhill Magazine_. I never enjoyed any work of the kind so well as this--it has always been my regret Payn did not write another of the same period. I recollect, when I first saw him in Waterloo Place, I had just read an article of his in which he gave a recipe for getting rid of callers, which was to bring the conversation to an abrupt termination, say absolutely nothing, but steadfastly stare at your visitor until he left. I can vouch for its being a simple and effective plan. [Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FOR "THE TALK OF THE TOWN" (REDUCED). _By permission of the proprietors of "Cornhill Magazine."_] When I entered his editorial sanctum the genial essayist received me most cordially, and looked the picture of comfort, surrounded as he was by a heterogeneous collection of pipes. Presently, through the clouds of smoke through which he had chatted in that lively, vivacious manner peculiarly his own, he knocked the ashes out of his finished pipe and mutely stared point-blank at me till I, like the pipe, went out also. But before making my exit I reminded him that I had read the article I refer to, up to which he was no doubt acting, and that I was pleased and interested that he practised the doctrine he preached. Possibly this remark of mine was unexpected, and therefore somewhat disconcerted him for a moment, for he quickly replied, "Not at all! not at all! Fact is, I was rather upset before you came in by a miserable man who called to see me, and at the moment I was, _a propos_ of him, thinking of a funny story about Theodore Hook I came across last night I never heard before. Poor Hook was at a smart dinner one evening, but instead of being as usual the life and soul of the party, he proved the wet blanket on the merry meeting, despite the fact that he, in all probability, had imbibed his stiff glass of brandy to get him up to his usual form before entering the house at which he was entertained. This most unusual phase of Hook's character surprised everybody present, so much so that his host ventured to remark that the volatile Theodore did not seem so merry as usual. "'Merry? I should think not! I should like to see anyone merry who has gone through what I have this afternoon!' "'What was that?' asked everyone, with one voice.