I hear that I give a little cry--a
meaningless sound of joy. The letter was from the editor. My story was
accepted--had been set in type immediately, straight off! A few slight
alterations.... A couple of errors in writing amended.... Worked out
with talent ... be printed tomorrow ... half-a-sovereign.

I laughed and cried, took to jumping and running down the street,
stopped, slapped my thighs, swore loudly and solemnly into space at
nothing in particular. And time went.

All through the night until the bright dawn I "jodled" about the
streets and repeated--"Worked out with talent--therefore a little
masterpiece--a stroke of genius--and half-a-sovereign."

Part II

A few weeks later I was out one evening. Once more I had sat out in a
churchyard and worked at an article for one of the newspapers. But
whilst I was struggling with it eight o'clock struck, and darkness
closed in, and time for shutting the gates.

I was hungry--very hungry. The ten shillings had, worse luck, lasted
all too short. It was now two, ay, nearly three days since I had eaten
anything, and I felt somewhat faint; holding the pencil even had taxed
me a little. I had half a penknife and a bunch of keys in my pocket,
but not a farthing.

When the churchyard gate shut I meant to have gone straight home, but,
from an instinctive dread of my room--a vacant tinker's workshop, where
all was dark and barren, and which, in fact, I had got permission to
occupy for the present--I stumbled on, passed, not caring where I went,
the Town Hall, right to the sea, and over to a scat near the railway
bridge.

At this moment not a sad thought troubled me. I forgot my distress, and
felt calmed by the view of the sea, which lay peaceful and lovely in
the murkiness. For old habit's sake I would please myself by reading
through the bit I had just written, and which seemed to my suffering
head the best thing I had ever done.

I took my manuscript out of my pocket to try and decipher it, held it
close up to my eyes, and ran through it, one line after the other. At
last I got tired, and put the papers back in my pocket. Everything was
still. The sea stretched away in pearly blueness, and little birds
flitted noiselessly by me from place to place.

A policeman patrols in the distance; otherwise there is not a soul
visible, and the whole harbour is hushed in quiet.

I count my belongings once more--half a penknife, a bunch of keys, but
not a farthing. Sudde