t, the sooner you
find it out the better for you. If you feel you've something inside of
you that must out in chapters and volumes, it generally comes, and all
the discouragement in the world won't keep it down. It's like those
stories of demoniacal possession in the "Anatomy"--you know your
Burton, I daresay? Some of the possessed brought "globes of hair" and
"such-like baggage" out of themselves, but others "stones with
inscriptions." If the demon gets too strong for you, try and produce a
stone with a good readable inscription on it--not three globes of hair
for the circulating libraries.'

'We shall see,' said Mark laughing. 'I must leave you here. I have an
appointment with Chilton & Fladgate just by.'

'Ay, ay,' said the old gentleman, wagging his head; 'publishers,
aren't they? Don't tell me your ambition's dead if it's taken you as
far as that. But I won't ask any more questions. I shall hope to be
able to congratulate you shortly. I won't keep you away from your
publishers any longer.'

'They are not my publishers yet,' said Mark; 'they have made me some
proposals, but I have not accepted them at present.'

He knew what a false impression this would leave with his companion,
bare statement of fact as it was, but he made it deliberately, feeling
almost as much flattered by the unconscious increase of consideration
in the other's voice and manner as if there had been the slightest
foundation for it.

They said good-bye, and the old clergyman went on and was swallowed up
in the crowd, thinking as he went, 'Publishing, eh? a good firm, too.
I don't think he could afford to do it at his own expense. Perhaps
there's more ballast in him after all than I gave him credit for. I
can't help liking the young fellow somehow, too. I should like to see
him make a good start.'

Mark, having sent up his name by one of the clerks behind the imposing
mahogany counters, was shown through various swinging glass doors into
a waiting-room, where the magazines and books symmetrically arranged
on the table gave a certain flavour of dentistry to the place.

Mark turned them over with a quite unreasonable nervousness, but the
fact was he shrank from what he considered the humiliation of
explaining that he was a mere agent; it occurred to him for the first
time, too, that Holroyd's death might possibly complicate matters, and
he felt a vague anger against his dead friend for leaving him in such
a position.

The clerk returned w