CONTENTS.
| PAGE | ||
| I. | A QUEER QUEST | [1] |
| II. | THE SAWDUST MAN’S CURSE | [11] |
| III. | LORD LUNDY’S SNUFF-BOX | [23] |
| IV. | “ONE WAS RENT AND LEFT TO DIE” | [32] |
| V. | THE GRIGSBY LIVING | [41] |
| VI. | RES EST SACRA MISER | [51] |
| VII. | MR. GREY | [60] |
| VIII. | THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN | [69] |
| IX. | A PHILANTHROPIC “MASHER” | [78] |
| X. | A DISHONOURED BILL | [87] |
| XI. | A MAN OF GENIUS | [96] |
| XII. | A DIGNIFIED DIPSOMANIAC | [106] |
| XIII. | “OLD BOOTS” | [115] |
| XIV. | A MISSING HEIRESS | [124] |
| XV. | TEDDY MARTIN’S BRIEF | [135] |
| XVI. | BLUEBEARD’S CUPBOARD | [144] |
| XVII. | TRUE TO POLL | [154] |
| XVIII. | JOHN PHILP, MASTER CARPENTER | [166] |
| XIX. | PICTURES ON THE LINE | [177] |
| XX. | THE DEVIL’S PLAYTHINGS | [186] |
| XXI. | LOVE AND A DIARY | [199] |
I.
A QUEER QUEST.
In the Times newspaper of Monday, 1st July, 18–, there appeared a notice of Mr. White’s last novel. The notice—for one cannot dignify with the name of review an article which did not exceed a quarter of a column—contained the following sentence:—
“Mr. White’s novels appear to us to lack but one element. Having achieved that one thing needful, Mr. White at once and without cavil takes his place in the first rank of modern novelists. In one word, Mr. White must learn to study Human Nature from the life. His characters are too often evolved from his inner consciousness, and as beings thus produced are apt to be wanting in backbone, it is not surprising that many of this popular author’s works are weak and flabby—shadows without substance—pictures without colour. If Mr. White were to give one-half of the time to the study of the men and women by whom he is surrounded, which he gives to the elaboration of plot and the cultivation of style, we do not know that there is any seat in the republic of letters which we would deny him.”
Mr. White was a timid gentleman, with thin reddish hair—a very tall forehead and weak eyes. He was also a very well tailored man, and lived in a neatly-appointed villa, in the Hilgrove Road, St. John’s Wood, N.W. He was married, but had no children. He was by profession a briefless barrister, but he made his name by writing novels. It so happened that the public applauded Mr. White from the very first moment that he appealed to them—at least in book form: his tentative efforts in periodicals having fallen very short of creating a furor. His nonsense, which, it must be confessed, was not of a very rollicking description, suited their nonsense. And that was the whole secret of his success. Being a very industrious man, he wrote a great many fictions, and being modest withal, attributed his fame to hard work rather than to any endowment of genius.
When Mr. White neglected his grilled bone, his buttered toast, his hot coffee, and his new-laid egg, and seemed spell-bound by what appeared in the Times newspaper, his wife instinctively knew that there was a notice of her husband’s book in that great organ, and she guessed by the twitching of his mouth, and the flushing of his face, that the notice was the reverse of favourable.
“It is quite true. It is quite true,” said Mr. White, aloud, but to himself, as he laid the paper down.
“What is quite true?” asked Mrs. White, who, while greatly appreciating the pecuniary results of her husband’s labour, had but little sympathy with the work itself.
“I am all wrong,” he replied, grimly.