_Méchant poulain_, says an old French proverb, _peut devenir bon cheval_. Nature having given me a certain fanciful inventiveness, which might appear to be my most negotiable asset, I thought I would try writing for a living, and even began with some illusions about Literature (with a capital), and the certainty of high purpose and high endeavour meeting in time with their due recognition and reward. But long was not wanted to put me out of that preposterous conceit, and make me understand the terms upon which “literature” is permitted to include itself among the high arts, such as the forming of a trust, or the exploiting of a pill or hair wash. I then stuffed a manuscript into an old potted beef tin, and forwarded it to an enterprising publisher, with the intimation that it had been discovered on a dust-heap, and that my terms were such and such, not as author but as entrepreneur. The ruse, being appreciated at its worth by a sagacious spirit, and the venture launched on a flood-tide of puffery, proved an instant success. The literary value of the book may have been anything or nothing; it ran into its twenty-fifth edition on a much solider basis; and I found myself suddenly the possessor of capital. Ira and Johnny were both immensely indignant with me when they discovered the truth. That occurred on the very day on which my wife had unearthed from Keats a quotation which she considered peculiarly applicable to my destiny and the ideals which ruled it: “... to die content on pleasant sward, Leaving great verse unto a little clan.” I laughed as I kissed her. “Good poets make unpractical fathers,” I said--“and you must not excite yourself, my loveliness. This money, well invested, is going to prove the nest-egg of our song-bird. We must line the nest, you know, if we want the bird to sing. And now, being independent of the public, I am going to pull its ears.” “You donkey,” she said, and pulled mine. So ends the Great Skene Mystery, the symbol of whose “stopping” is to be found at this day, if one is curious enough to look for it, in the little lead plug let into a hole in the floor of the old Court at Westminster, where once was inserted the rod which held the screen which protected the judges from the draughts. And, if I am Richard Gaskett still, I have at least earned a popular title to my name. [The End] NOTES. [1] #The Eye# Equals Johnny himself--the ego, that is to say. All his own. [2] For the sake of clearness, the story is given in reporter’s English, as afterwards minuted, and not in the hybrid phraseology characteristic of the narrator. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES. Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ frowsy/frowzy, notepaper/note-paper, etc.) have been preserved. Text-edition only: “#” is used to indicate bolded text. Alterations to the text: Convert footnotes to endnotes. Punctuation fixes: quotation mark pairing, missing periods, etc. [Chapter III]