"What o'clock is it?" he asked then.
"I don't know rightly; about three, I think!" Whereupon they both laughed and drove on. I felt at the same moment the lash of a whip curl round one of my ears, and my hat was jerked off. They couldn't let me pass without playing me a trick. I raised my hand to my head more or less confusedly, picked my hat out of the ditch, and continued on my way. Down at St. Han's Hill I met a man who told me it was past four. Past four! already past four! I mended my pace, nearly ran down to the town, turned off towards the news office. Perhaps the editor had been there hours ago, and had left the office by now. I ran, jostled against folk, stumbled, knocked against cars, left everybody behind me, competed with the very horses, struggled like a madman to arrive there in time. I wrenched through the door, took the stairs in four bounds, and knocked.
No answer.
"He has left, he has left," I think. I try the door which is open, knock once again, and enter. The editor is sitting at his table, his face towards the window, pen in hand, about to write. When he hears my breathless greeting he turns half round, steals a quick look at me, shakes his head, and says:
"Oh, I haven't found time to read your sketch yet."
I am so delighted, because in that case he has not rejected it, that I answer:
"Oh, pray, sir, don't mention it. I quite understand--there is no hurry; in a few days, perhaps--"
"Yes, I shall see; besides, I have your address."
I forgot to inform him that I no longer had an address, and the interview is over. I bow myself out, and leave. Hope flames up again in me; as yet, nothing is lost--on the contrary, I might, for that matter, yet win all. And my brain began to spin a romance about a great council in Heaven, in which it had just been resolved that I should win--ay, triumphantly win ten shillings for a story.
If I only had some place in which to take refuge for the night! I consider where I can stow myself away, and am so absorbed in this query that I come to a standstill in the middle of the street. I forget where I am, and pose like a solitary beacon on a rock in mid-sea, whilst the tides rush and roar about it.