The sequel to my visit at Scarsdale Lodge was an article, and the article was sent, on chance, to the Boston Herald, then the leading newspaper in New England and of almost metropolitan importance. I did not know any one connected with the paper, not even the editor's name. But the article was printed, although I did not know that until some months later, at the end of 1882, when I turned up in Boston, at the Herald office, and asked for the editor, sending him my card with a message of inquiry about the article which I had posted to him from London some months earlier.
I intended to ask him for a job, for I had decided to settle awhile in Boston and turn my London experiences to account if the opportunity could be made.
A boy came to the room where I had waited on the anxious seat for an unhappy quarter of an hour.
"Mr. Holmes will see you," he said. "Come this way."
Holmes was the man's name, was it! Yes, John H. I had learned that much, and I followed the boy to an inner office. A dark-haired, slender, agreeable-mannered man, who looked rather like the Whitelaw Reid of that time, rose from his desk. As he did so I said:
"Mr. Holmes, I believe."
"Yes," said he, "and you are the writer of that article?" naming it.
"Yes," said I.
He held out his hand, and smiled. We shook hands, and I tried to look as if it were my daily occupation to be welcomed by the editors of powerful journals. Naturally, I did n't feel that way, and was nervously wondering what to say next. That anxiety vanished as the editor asked: