Mr. Mortimer's resolution was confirmed beyond the possibility of change, he felt assured, by a little voyage in the steamer to Sheerness. Chatham was "just the place," the Sheerness people assured him, for the publication of a paper, and _they_ would support it; in fact, it would have the support of "the _whole_ Isle of Sheppy!" Mr. Mortimer was exhilarated,--nay, he was exultant; and, although he had determined only to stay an hour in Sheerness, and then get on board a steamer for returning up the Thames, he was so pleased that he remained all day, and drank as hard, in his earnestness, as he had at the "Ranelagh Gardens" in the Isle of Thanet. Mr. Mortimer had but _one_ call now to make, in order to complete the line of Kentish survey,--circle, rather, which he had so sagaciously laid down for himself; and he, accordingly, got out at Gravesend, the next morning, as he was proceeding in the packet on the Thames. Not that Mr. Mortimer thought Gravesend of great importance, but it might be as well, he said within himself, to call there. Unfortunate Mr. Mortimer! what did he know of the "relative importance" of the towns of Kent? Landlords, company, shopkeepers, loungers of all grades, in fact, every body, insisted that Gravesend was the _only_ place in Kent where a paper could possibly prosper! People little thought of the real worth of Gravesend. "But you have no member of parliament," said poor Mr. Mortimer, feeling all his old tribulation returning. What then? it was answered: they had a corporation, and two piers, and two packet companies, with eternal war between the piers and the companies,--war that shook the whole bank of the Thames, and was even perceived to have caused sundry vibrations in London bridge itself, where "the companies'" packets landed their passengers. Besides, they had had a paper in Gravesend once,--"The Journal,"--and _it_ prospered; but no sooner was it removed to Greenwich than it became worthless. _That_ ought to be a convincing proof to Mr. Mortimer that Gravesend was the proper, the _only_ fulcrum for his intellectual lever. Above all,--Gravesend was now become "London in parvo,"--a fine, well-fed and well-dressed gentleman observed: genteel people,--he meant prosperous merchants,--removed their families thither for the entire summer season, and just took the run with the steamers to London and back, morning and evening, to transact business: the metropolis possessed its finest suburb in the rising and extending and rapidly-improving town of Gravesend!--and the company cheered the gentleman's speech most enthusiastically,--and, poor Mr. Mortimer! he was, more than ever, confounded, puzzled, bothered, perplexed, flummaxed, and flabbergasted! He could not return to London that day: that was as clear as the sun at noon,--although the "fulcrum" question was become so disastrously dim, since he left Chatham and Sheerness. Nay, Mr. Mortimer staid at Gravesend even the whole of the