It took the editor some time to explain what he meant. But he did so at considerable length and with wonderful lucidity. The personality of this young man appealed to him. And he felt that the author of _Dick Smith_ had had an almost superhuman task laid upon him. Here was a competitor in the Olympian games starting from a mark so far behind his peers that by all the laws he was out of the race before he started to run it. But was he? Somehow Edward Ambrose felt that if this dauntless spirit, already many times defeated, but never completely overthrown, could find the courage to go on, the world would have cause one day to congratulate _Brown's Magazine_. The editor took a cordial leave of his strange visitor. "Keep on keeping on, and see what comes of it. Don't be afraid to use the knife, but be careful not to cut yourself. That's the particular form of the eternal paradox assumed by the absolute for the overthrow of the writing man! It's a riddle each must read in his own way. But instinct is the master key. Trust it as you have done already, and it will unlock every door. However, we will talk of that another time. But you might bear in mind what a great writer said to me here in this room only last week. 'When you feel anything you may have written is really fine it is a golden rule to leave it out.' Clear away a few of the trees, and then we may begin to see the wood. But this doesn't apply to the Island of San Pedro. Not a word of _that_ can be spared." The Sailor walked on air as far as the National Gallery. But as he turned the corner into Charing Cross Road he was brought to earth by a violent collision with an elderly gentleman. He was not brought literally to earth because he suffered less than his victim. Before the elderly gentleman had ceased to blaspheme the young man came within an ace of an even more emphatic reminder of earth's realities: at the end of Cranbourn Street an omnibus nearly ran over him. Still, it is the part of charity to cover his sins, because up till then, Tuesday, September the fifth had been the day of his life. X This mood did not last very long. He was now up against the stern facts of authorship. The story of _Dick Smith_ would have to be written again and written differently. In the reincarnation would be little of the creative rapture of the primal birth. And so little faith had the Sailor in his powers that he could not help feeling that too much had been asked of them. To add to his doubts, he was beset by conflicting advice. Miss Dobbs was quite angry when she learned the result of the interview with Mr. Ambrose, which she did the day after it had taken place. "Wants you to write it again, does he?" she said with a glow of indignation. "I call that the limit! Now, if you'll be guided by me, Mr. Harper, which, of course, you ought to have been from the first, you'll do nothing of the kind. Send it to the _Rotunda_ or the _Covent Garden_."