I fell back into my real world of cobwebs and
mustiness, I gazed upon the pins I had just ground, and, without a
moment's hesitation, I threw them into the street, and reported the
lot as spoiled. This cost me a little money, but it saved me my
livelihood."

After a few moments of silence, Barbel resumed:

"I have no more to say to you, my young friend. All I want you to do
is to look upon that framed conundrum, then upon this grindstone,
and then to go home and reflect. As for me, I have a gross of pins
to grind before the sun goes down."

I cannot say that my depression of mind was at all relieved by what
I had seen and heard. I had lost sight of Barbel for some years, and
I had supposed him still floating on the sun-sparkling stream of
prosperity where I had last seen him. It was a great shock to me to
find him in such a condition of poverty and squalor, and to see a
man who had originated the "Conundrum of the Anvil" reduced to the
soul-depressing occupation of grinding pin-points. As I walked and
thought, the dreadful picture of a totally eclipsed future arose
before my mind. The moral of Barbel sank deep into my heart.

When I reached home I told my wife the story of my friend Barbel.
She listened with a sad and eager interest.

"I am afraid," she said, "if our fortunes do not quickly mend, that
we shall have to buy two little grindstones. You know I could help
you at that sort of thing."

For a long time we sat together and talked, and devised many plans
for the future. I did not think it necessary yet for me to look out
for a pin-contract; but I must find some way of making money, or we
should starve to death. Of course the first thing that suggested
itself was the possibility of finding some other business; but,
apart from the difficulty of immediately obtaining remunerative work
in occupations to which I had not been trained, I felt a great and
natural reluctance to give up a profession for which I had carefully
prepared myself, and which I had adopted as my life-work. It would
be very hard for me to lay down my pen forever, and to close the top
of my inkstand upon all the bright and happy fancies which I had
seen mirrored in its tranquil pool. We talked and pondered the rest
of that day and a good deal of the night, but we came to no
conclusion as to what it would be best for us to do.

The next day I determined to go and call upon the editor of the
journal for which, in happier days, before the blig