say what a pleasure it would be to me if we were going at it shoulder to shoulder.”  I marvel (looking back) that I could so long have resisted these appeals, and continue to sink my friend’s money in a manner that I knew him to dislike.  At least, when I did awake to any sense of my position, I awoke to it entirely; and determined not only to follow his counsel for the future, but even as regards the past, to rectify his losses.  For in this juncture of affairs I called to mind that I was not without a possible resource, and resolved, at whatever cost of mortification, to beard the Loudon family in their historic city.

In the excellent Scots’ phrase, I made a moonlight flitting, a thing never dignified, but in my case unusually easy.  As I had scarce a pair of boots worth portage, I deserted the whole of my effects without a pang.  Dijon fell heir to Joan of Arc, the Standard Bearer, and the Musketeers.  He was present when I bought and frugally stocked my new portmanteau; and it was at the door of the trunk shop that I took my leave of him, for my last few hours in Paris must be spent alone.  It was alone (and at a far higher figure than my finances warranted) that I discussed my dinner; alone that I took my ticket at Saint Lazare; all alone, though in a carriage full of people, that I watched the moon shine on the Seine flood with its tufted islets, on Rouen with her spires, and on the shipping in the harbour of Dieppe.  When the first light of the morning called me from troubled slumbers on the deck, I beheld the dawn at first with pleasure; I watched with pleasure the green shores of England rising out of rosy haze; I took the salt air with delight into my nostrils; and then all came back to me; that I was no longer an artist, no longer myself; that I was leaving all I cared for, and returning to all that I detested, the slave of debt and gratitude, a public and a branded failure.

From this picture of my own disgrace and wretchedness, it is not wonderful if my mind turned with relief to the thought of Pinkerton, waiting for me, as I knew, with unwearied affection, and regarding me with a respect that I had never deserved, and might therefore fairly hope that I should never forfeit.  The inequality of our relation struck me rudely.  I must have been stupid, indeed, if I could have considered the history of that friendship without shame—­I, who had given so little, who had accepted and profited by so much.  I had the whole day before me in London, and I determined (at least in words) to set the balance somewhat straighter.  Seated in the corner of a public place, and calling for sheet after sheet of paper, I poured forth the expression of my gratitude, my penitence for the past, my resolutions for the future.  Till now, I told him, my course had been mere selfishness.  I had been selfish to my father and to my friend, taking their help, and denying them (which was all they asked) the poor gratification of my company and countenance.