escaped the lips of Mr. Kenny. It
is probable the incident had passed from his memory; he had nothing to
do with the novel department itself, and the delivery of MSS. was a very
common everyday proceeding to him. I was too bashful, perhaps too proud,
an individual to ask any questions of him; but every evening that I
encountered him I used to wonder "if he had heard anything," if any news
of the book's fate had reached him, directly or indirectly; occasionally
even, as time went on, I was disposed to imagine that he was letting me
win the game out of kindness--for he was a gentle, kindly soul
always--in order to soften the shock of a disappointment which he knew
perfectly well was on its way towards me.

[Illustration: MR. ROBINSON'S LIBRARY.]

[Illustration: THE GARDEN.]

Some months afterwards, the fateful letter came to me from the firm,
regretting their inability to make use of the MS., and expressing many
thanks for a perusal of the same--a polite, concise, all-round kind of
epistle, which a publisher is compelled to keep in stock, and to send
out when rejected literature pours forth like a waterfall from the dusky
caverns of a publishing house in a large way of business. It was all
over, then--I had failed! From that hour I would turn chess player, and
soften my brain in a quest for silver cups or champion amateur stakes. I
could play chess better than I could write fiction, I was sure. Still,
after some days of dead despair, I sent the MS. once more on its
travels--this time to Smith and Elder's, whose reader, Mr. Williams, had
leapt into singular prominence since his favourable judgment of
Charlotte Bronte's book, and to whom most MSS. flowed spontaneously for
many years afterwards. And in due course of time, Mr. Williams, acting
for Messrs. Smith and Elder, asked me to call upon him--_for the
MS._!--at Cornhill, and there I received my first advice, my first
thrill of exultation. "Presently, and probably, _and with
perseverance_," he said, "you will succeed in literature, and if you
will remember now, that to write a good novel is a very considerable
achievement. Years of short story-writing is the best apprenticeship for
you. Write and re-write, and spare no pains." I thanked him, and I went
home with tears in my eyes of gratitude and consolation, though my big
story had been declined with thanks. But I did not write again. I put
away my MS., and went on for six or eight hours a day at chess for many
idle m