No doubt my vanity was wounded, but I will not pretend that I was very seriously hurt. Neither could I ponder long upon the matter, because another letter, received by the same post, claimed my attention. Sylvia's letter threw out a hint of better things for us in a year or two's time. Her notion of a break between us was "for the present." There were references to "later on, when you can come here again, and we need not hide things." But my other letter made more instant claims. It was type-written, and ran thus: "DEAR MR. MORDAN:--Mr. Chas. N. Pierce directs me to inform you that after the expiration of the present month your services will no longer be required by the editor of the _Daily Gazette_. "I am, Sir, Yours faithfully, JAMES MARTIN, _Secretary_." I pictured the little pale-eyed rabbit of a man typing the dictum of his Napoleon, his hero, and wondering in his amiable way how "Mr. Mordan" would be affected thereby, and how he had managed to displease the great man. As for "the editor of the _Daily Gazette_," I had not seen him since the day of my engagement. But I recalled now various recent signs of chill disapproval of my work on Mr. Pierce's part. And, indeed, I was aware myself of a slackness in my work, a kind of reckless, windmill-tilting tendency in my general attitude. Meantime, there was the fact that I had recently encroached twice upon my tiny nest-egg; once to buy a wedding present for my sister Lucy, and once for a piece of silly extravagance. It was quite a notable week. IX A STEP DOWN "Cosmopolitanism is nonsense; the cosmopolite is a cipher, worse than a cipher; outside of nationality there is neither art, nor truth, nor life; there is nothing."--IVAN TURGENIEFF. I have mentioned a piece of reckless extravagance; it was reckless in view of my straightened circumstances. And the reason I mention this apparent trifle is that it and its attendant circumstances influenced me in my conduct after the abrupt termination of the _Daily Gazette_ engagement. One of my fellow knights of the reporters' room introduced me in a certain Fleet Street wine-bar to one of the characters of that classic highway--a man named Clement Blaine, who edited and owned a weekly publication called _The Mass_. I hasten to add that this journal had nothing whatever to do with any kind of religious observance. Its title referred to the people, or rather, to the section of the public which, at that time, we still described by the quaintly misleading phrase, "the working classes," as though work were a monopoly in the hands of the manual labourer.