him I found him a most enterprising liar, and
I dare say he exaggerated a little here. I asked him what trade
he followed or professed between whiles. The rascal grinned with a
delightful cunning and said he was a hand comb-maker.

'The trade's dead,' he told me; 'machinery's knocked the bottom out
of it. There's only one shop in England where they makes combs by 'and
nowadays, and you can bet as _I_ steers clear o' _that_. It's a lovely
lay to go on, matey. "The trade's ruined," you says, "by machinery,"
you says. "I was brought up to it for a livin'," says you, "an' it's
the only thing," you says, "as I've got to yearn my daily bread by the
sweat of my brow by," you says. Lord! I've had as much as ninepence in a
day out o' that yarn on the very road as we're a travellin' now.'

I had a qualm of conscience; but his artless tale was told, as it were,
under the seal of confession, and I never betrayed him.

VII

It was at least as agreeable to starve on the non-proceeds of landscape
painting as on those of journalism, and when nothing in the way of meat
and drink was to be got out of either, it was only a choice as to the
form of euthanasia. I guessed I could make no money out of painting;
but I knew by practical experience that there was nothing to be made by
journalism.

I was daubing in a friend's chambers when the angel of opportunity came.
He appeared in the form of an American gentleman with a fur collar and
an astonishing Massachusetts accent. War had been actually declared
between Russia and Turkey a week or two before. The Russians were
already at Giurgevo, building a bridge of boats with intent to cross the
Danube, and the Turks were gathered in force at Rustchuk and Schumla.
So much I knew from I the newspapers, but no further intelligence of the
opening campaign had reached me.

My visitors card announced him as Colonel ------, and he bore a letter
of introduction from the representative of a leading New York journal.
He was himself in London as the representative of a newspaper published
in Chicago, and in the course of a five minutes' conversation he told me
that he was in search of a young, healthy, and enterprising journalist
who was willing to risk his life for the honour of his craft, and a
rather considerable sum per column for copy delivered at the office
of the newspaper of which he made himself the flying herald, The only
engagement I had in the world was to breakfast with a man on Sund