this advertisement, as soon as my eyes fell on "Sherry
Wine" and "Author," I felt that here was something for me. "F. S. M."
puzzled me at first, but I read it Fleet Street Magazine, by a flash of
inspiration. "Wretched Boy" seemed familiar and unappropriate--I was
twenty-nine--but what of that? Of course I communicated with Messrs.
Mantlepiece, saying that I had reason for supposing that I was the
"author" alluded to in the advertisement. As to the words, "Wreck of the
Jingo" they entirely beat me, but I hoped that some light would be thrown
on their meaning by the respectable firm of solicitors. It did occur to
me that if any one had reasons for communicating with me, it would have
been better and safer to address a letter to me, under cover, to the
editor of the Fleet Street Magazine. But the public have curious ideas
on these matters. Two days after I wrote to Messrs. Mantlepiece I
received a very guarded reply, in which I was informed that their client
wished to make my acquaintance, and that a carriage would await me, if I
presented myself at Upton-on-the-Wold Station, by the train arriving at
5.45 on Friday. Well, I thought to myself, I may as well do a
"week-ending," as some people call it, with my anonymous friend as
anywhere else. At the same time I knew that the "carriage" might be
hired by enemies to convey me to the Pauper Lunatic Asylum or to West
Ham, the place where people disappear mysteriously. I might be the
victim of a rival's jealousy (and many men, novelists of most horrible
imaginings, envied my talents and success), or a Nihilist plot might have
drawn me into its machinery. But I was young, and I thought I would see
the thing out. My journey was unadventurous, if you except a row with a
German, who refused to let me open the window. But this has nothing to
do with my narrative, and is not a false scent to make a guileless reader
keep his eye on the Teuton. Some novelists permit themselves these
artifices, which I think untradesmanlike and unworthy. When I arrived at
Upton, the station-master made a charge at my carriage, and asked me if I
was "The gentleman for the Towers?" The whole affair was so mysterious
that I thought it better to answer in the affirmative. My luggage (a
Gladstone bag) was borne by four stately and liveried menials to a roomy
and magnificent carriage, in which everything, from the ducal crown on
the silver foot-warmers to the four splendid bays, breathed of opu