ound myself, somewhat to my
surprise, in the office of Henry & Co., publishers, and in the presence
of Mr. J. Hannaford Bennett, an active partner in the firm. He greeted
me by name, also to my surprise, and told me he had heard me speak at
the Playgoers' Club. A little conversation ensued, and he mentioned that
his firm was going to bring out a Library of Wit and Humour. I told him
I had begun a book, avowedly humorous, and had written two chapters of
it, and he straightway came over to my office, heard me read them, and
immediately secured the book. (The then editor ultimately refused to
have it in the 'Whitefriars' Library of Wit and Humour,' and so it was
brought out separately.) Within three months, working in odds and ends
of time, I finished it, correcting the proofs of the first chapters
while I was writing the last; indeed, ever since the day I read those
two chapters to Mr. Hannaford Bennett I have never written a line
anywhere that has not been purchased before it was written. For, to my
undying astonishment, two average editions of my real 'first book' were
disposed of on the day of publication, to say nothing of the sale in New
York. Unless I had acquired a reputation of which I was totally
unconscious, it must have been the title that 'fetched' the trade. Or,
perhaps, it was the illustrations by my friend, Mr. George Hutchinson,
whom I am proud to have discovered as a cartoonist for _Ariel_.

So here the story comes to a nice sensational climax. Re-reading it, I
feel dimly that there ought to be a moral in it somewhere for the
benefit of struggling fellow-scribblers. But the best I can find is
this: That if you are blessed with some talent, a great deal of
industry, and an amount of conceit mighty enough to enable you to
disregard superiors, equals and critics, as well as the fancied demands
of the public, it is possible, without friends, or introductions, or
bothering celebrities to read your manuscripts, or cultivating the camp
of the log-rollers, to attain, by dint of slaving day and night for
years during the flower of your youth, to a fame infinitely less
widespread than a prizefighter's, and a pecuniary position which you
might with far less trouble have been born to.

[Illustration: A FAME LESS WIDESPREAD THAN A PRIZEFIGHTER'S]

[Illustration: Drawing signed E. M. Jessop with signature below:

Morley Roberts]

'_THE WESTERN AVERNUS_'

BY MORLEY ROBERTS

Certainly no one was more surp