"Will you step this way?" said the publisher's manager, and after coasting by many shelves loaded with scores of copies of the same book laid flat in piles--to an author the most depressing sight in the world--I was ushered into the sanctum, the star-chamber, the den, the web of the spider. I beheld the publisher, whose name is a household word wherever the English language is written for posterity. Even at that time his imprint flamed on the title-pages of one or two works of a deathless nature. My manuscript lay on an occasional table by his side, and I had the curious illusion that he was posing for his photograph with my manuscript. As I glanced at it I could not help thinking that its presence there bordered on the miraculous. I had parted with it at a post-office. It had been stamped, sorted, chucked into a van, whirled through the perilous traffic of London's centre, chucked out of a van, sorted again, and delivered with many other similar parcels at the publisher's. The publisher had said: "Send this to So-and-so to read." Then more perils by road and rail, more risks of extinction and disorientation. Then So-and-so, probably a curt man, with a palate cloyed by the sickliness of many manuscripts, and a short way with new authors, had read it or pretended to read it. Then finally the third ordeal of locomotion. And there it was, I saw it once more, safe! We discussed the weather and new reputations. I was nervous, and I think the publisher was nervous, too. At length, in a manner mysterious and inexplicable, the talk shifted to my manuscript. The publisher permitted himself a few compliments of the guarded sort. "But there's no money in it, you know," he said. "I suppose not," I assented. ("You are an ass for assenting to that," I said to myself.) "I invariably lose money over new authors," he remarked, as if I was to blame. "You didn't lose much over Mrs.----," I replied, naming one of his notorious successes. "Oh, _well_!" he said, "of course----. But I didn't make so much as you think, perhaps. Publishing is a very funny business." And then he added: "Do you think your novel will succeed like Mrs.----'s?" I said that I hoped it would. "I'll be perfectly frank with you," the publisher exclaimed, smiling beneficently. "My reader likes your book. I'll tell you what he says." He took a sheet of paper that lay on the top of the manuscript and read. I was enchanted, spell-bound. The nameless literary adviser used phrases of which the following are specimens (I am recording with exactitude): "Written with great knowledge and a good deal of insight." "Character delineated by a succession of rare and subtle touches." "Living, convincing." "Vigour and accuracy." "The style is good." I had no idea that publishers' readers were capable of such laudation. The publisher read on: "I do not think it likely to be a striking success!" "Oh!" I murmured, shocked by this bluntness.