“I had another motive,” he confesses, “because, if you were intimate with any of these authors, I should naturally ’esitate to say anything which might have the effect of altering your opinion of them.  As it is, I can speak with perfect freedom—­though in the strictest confidence.  You see before you, Madam, an unfortunate bean, whom circumstances have ’itherto debarred from ever reaping the fruit of his own brine!  Well may you remark, ‘Your Gracious Goodness’”—­(your natural astonishment having escaped you in the shape of this invocation)—­“for in your goodness and in your graciousness rests my sole remaining ’ope.  I was endowed from an early age with a fertile and versatile imagination, and creative powers which, without vanity, I may say, were of a rather superior class.  The one thing I lacked was inflooence, and in the world of letters, Madam, as I am sure you do not need to be informed, without inflooence Genius is denied a suitable opening.  At several literary Clubs in the West End I made the acquaintance of the authors whose letters you have just had the opportunity of reading—­men who have since attained to the topmost pinnacle of Fame.  At that time they were comparatively obscure; they ’eard my conversation, they realised that I ’ad ideers, of which they knew the value better, perhaps, than I did myself.  I used to see them taking down notes on their shirt-cuffs, and that, but I took no notice of it at the time.  Probably you have read the celebrated work of fiction by Mr. GASHLEIGH Walker, entitled, King Cole’s Cellars?  I thought so.  I gave him the plot, scenery and characters complete, for that story.  I did, indeed.”

“And do you mean to say he has taken all the credit himself!” you exclaim, very properly shocked.

“If he has,” he replies, meekly, “I am far from complaining—­a shilling or two was an object to me at that time.  And it got me more work of the sort.  There’s Booty Bay, now, the book that made Robertson—­that was took down, word for word, from my dictation, in a back parlour of one of LOCKHART’s Cocoa-Rooms.  I got fifteen shillings for that. He got, I daresay, ’undreds of pounds.  Well, I don’t grudge it to him.  As he said, I ought to remember he had all the manual labour of it.  Then there’s that other book which has sold its thousands, Four Men in a Funny—­that was mine—­all but the last chapter; he would put in that, and, in my opinion, spoilt it, from an artistic point.  But what could I do?  It was out of my ’ands!  I must say I never anticipated myself that it would be so popular.  ’I should be robbing you,’ I said, ’if I took more than ten shillings for it.’  All the same, it turned out a good bargain for him.  Then there’s the Drama, you would hardly credit it that I could name three leading theatres at this present moment where pieces are running which came originally out of my ’ed!  But it’s no use my saying so—­no one would believe it.  And now I’ve ’elped all these men up the ladder, they can do without me—­they can go alone—­or think they can.  See the way they write—­not a word about owing anything to my ’umble services, a postal order for three-and-six; but that’s the world all over!”