Week_. But the paper was anything but prosperous. Indeed, I
believe there was never any time during its existence of twenty years
when it could be called prosperous. After three years of gallant
struggle, Rice concluded to give it up. He sold the paper. He would
never confess how much he lost over it; but the ambition to become
proprietor and editor of a popular weekly existed no longer in his
bosom, and he was wont to grow thoughtful in after years when this
episode was recalled to his memory. During this period, however, I saw a
great deal of the management, and was admitted behind the scenes, and
saw several remarkable and interesting people. For instance, there was a
certain literary hack, a pure and simple hack, who was engaged at a
salary to furnish so many columns a week to order. He was clever,
something of a scholar, something of a poet, and could write a very
readable paper on almost any subject. In fact, he was not in the least
proud, and would undertake anything that was proposed. It was not his
duty to suggest, nor did he show the least interest in his work, nor had
he the least desire to advance himself. In most cases, I believe, he
simply 'conveyed' the matter; and if the thing was found out, he would
be the first to deplore that he had 'forgotten the quotes.' He was a
thirsty soul; he had no enthusiasm except for drink; he lived, in fact,
only for drink; in order to get more money for drink he lived in one
squalid room, and went in rags. One day he dismissed himself after an
incident over which we may drop a veil. Some time after it was reported
that he was attempting the stage as a pantomime super. But fate fell
upon him; he became ill; he was carried to a hospital; and pneumonia
opened for him the gates of the other world. He was made for better
things.

[Illustration: JULIA]

Again, it was in the editor's small back room that I made the
acquaintance of a young lady named Julia, whose biography I afterwards
related. She was a bookbinder's accountant all the day, and in the
evening she was a _figurante_ at one of the theatres. I think she was
not a very pretty girl, but she had good eyes--of the soft, sad kind,
which seem to belong to those destined to die young; and in the evening,
when she was dressed, she looked very well indeed, and was placed in the
front.

To the editor's office came in multitudes seedy and poverty-stricken
literary men; there were not, twenty-four years ago, so many literary