There Mr. Nelson had to be visited to see how promptly and skilfully he administered the affairs of the great printing and publishing business which he had developed into such proportions; and, happily, notes furnished by an authoress, who did considerable literary work for the firm in those later years, enable us to catch a glimpse of him in business hours. “My first visit to his office,” she writes, “was, I think, in the spring of 1883. Several persons were in attendance, waiting for orders or interviews. Owing to this circumstance, and my having formed the impression that Mr. Nelson was a very formidable sort of a man to approach, I made my proposals in an abrupt and hurried manner. I was by no means surprised at a hasty, ‘No, no; quite unnecessary at present,’ and made my retreat at once. But as I was passing out, he turned from another to whom he had given some instructions in an equally concise fashion, and rising suddenly from his chair with some apologetic words, he inquired what I had published, and then said, ‘I have been wishing to see you.’ After this we had a long, pleasant chat, and he at once explained to me certain literary work that he wished me to undertake. This was my introduction to him. I went to him a stranger, but though my acquaintance with him was only of some four years’ duration, and was mostly a business acquaintance, I soon learned to regard him as a friend. The kindness and encouragement he gave helped me greatly, because it was not the mere kindness of a ‘big’ publisher to a ‘little’ author. He was always business-like in insisting that the work done should be just as he liked it. There could be no ‘scamping’ work under his keen eyes. But he took infinite trouble in procuring books of reference and helping my work, and was most generous in all his dealings. On one occasion, after having undertaken some work, and having given him much trouble regarding books of reference, I found the task beyond me, and had to tell him so. I expected a scolding, and instead received a cheque ‘in payment for what you have done of the book.’ What I had done was merely to indicate the lines upon which the book might run. A fortnight before his death he sent me a copy of the book I ‘was to have written,’ with a very kind note, which I value much. The publisher’s office is a terrible place to a not-confident lady-writer. Sometimes I have had to wait while Mr. Nelson was ‘interviewing,’ directing, correcting, and so forth; and my courage has not been strengthened by the spectacle of faulty work being overhauled in a most careful manner, and ruthlessly condemned or sharply criticised. Yet I have always gone out of that office with a light heart. Some kindly word about my children or my old home, some chat about the foreign lands he had visited, the gift of a book, a fatherly caution ‘not to work too much’--these made me feel that Mr. Nelson took his large heart into the publisher’s office. Would that all publishers did like him.”