‘Awful, isn’t it,’ he laughed lightly. ‘Well, you won’t detain me much longer, for here you are close at home.—Now, I will just run into Fleet Street on my own business, and try and sell this little paper of your husband’s at the same time. I’ll call in this afternoon; only, mind, you must look as happy as you do now.’
Jasper Felix made his way through a court into Holborn, and along that busy thoroughfare till he turned down Chancery Lane. Crossing the street by the famous Griffin, he disappeared in one of the interminable courts leading out of Samuel Johnson’s favourite promenade, Fleet Street. The object of his journey was here. On the door-plate was the inscription, ‘The Midas Magazine,’ and beneath the legend, ‘First Floor.’ Ascending the dingy stair, he stopped opposite a door on which, in white letters, was written the word ‘Editor.’ At this door he knocked. It was not the timid rap of a literary aspirant, but the important tap of a man who knew that he was welcome. Without pausing for a reply, he pushed open the door.
‘How de do, Simpson?’ said Mr Felix, with a look of amusement in his blue eyes.
‘Glad to see you, Felix,’ said the editor of the Midas cordially. ‘I thought you had forgotten us. I hope you have something for our journal in your pocket.’
‘I have something in my pocket to show you,’ answered Felix, ‘and I think you will appreciate it.’
‘Is it something of your own?’ queried the man of letters.
‘No, it is not; and, what is more, I doubt if I could write anything so good myself. I know when you have seen it, you will accept it.’
‘Um! I don’t know,’ replied the editor dubiously. ‘You see, I am simply inundated with amateur efforts. Of course, sometimes I get something good; but usually—— Now, if the matter in discussion was a manuscript of your own’——
‘Now, seriously, Simpson, what do you care for me or anything of mine? It is the name you want, not the work. You know well enough what sells magazines of the Midas type. It is not so much the literary matter as the name. The announcement that the next month’s Midas will contain the opening chapters of a new serial by some one with a name, is quite sufficient to increase your circulation by hundreds.’
‘’Pon my honour, you’re very candid,’ rejoined Mr Simpson. ‘But what is this wonderful production you have?’