As soon as I saw this advertisement, as soon as my eyes fell on “Sherry Wine” and “Author,” I felt that here was something for me.  “F.  S. M.” puzzled me at first, but I read it Fleet Street Magazine, by a flash of inspiration.  “Wretched Boy” seemed familiar and unappropriate—­I was twenty-nine—­but what of that?  Of course I communicated with Messrs. Mantlepiece, saying that I had reason for supposing that I was the “author” alluded to in the advertisement.  As to the words, “Wreck of the Jingo” they entirely beat me, but I hoped that some light would be thrown on their meaning by the respectable firm of solicitors.  It did occur to me that if any one had reasons for communicating with me, it would have been better and safer to address a letter to me, under cover, to the editor of the Fleet Street Magazine.  But the public have curious ideas on these matters.  Two days after I wrote to Messrs. Mantlepiece I received a very guarded reply, in which I was informed that their client wished to make my acquaintance, and that a carriage would await me, if I presented myself at Upton-on-the-Wold Station, by the train arriving at 5.45 on Friday.  Well, I thought to myself, I may as well do a “week-ending,” as some people call it, with my anonymous friend as anywhere else.  At the same time I knew that the “carriage” might be hired by enemies to convey me to the Pauper Lunatic Asylum or to West Ham, the place where people disappear mysteriously.  I might be the victim of a rival’s jealousy (and many men, novelists of most horrible imaginings, envied my talents and success), or a Nihilist plot might have drawn me into its machinery.  But I was young, and I thought I would see the thing out.  My journey was unadventurous, if you except a row with a German, who refused to let me open the window.  But this has nothing to do with my narrative, and is not a false scent to make a guileless reader keep his eye on the Teuton.  Some novelists permit themselves these artifices, which I think untradesmanlike and unworthy.  When I arrived at Upton, the station-master made a charge at my carriage, and asked me if I was “The gentleman for the Towers?” The whole affair was so mysterious that I thought it better to answer in the affirmative.  My luggage (a Gladstone bag) was borne by four stately and liveried menials to a roomy and magnificent carriage, in which everything, from the ducal crown on the silver foot-warmers to the four splendid bays, breathed of opulence, directed and animated by culture.  I dismissed all thoughts of the Pauper Lunatic Asylum and the Nihilists, and was whirled through miles of park and up an avenue lighted by electricity.  We reached the baronial gateway of the Towers, a vast Gothic pile in the later manner of Inigo Jones, and a seneschal stood at the foot of a magnificent staircase to receive me.  I had never seen a seneschal before, but I recognized him by the peeled white wand he carried, by his great silver chain, and his black velvet coat and knee-breeches.