It is rather a difficult matter in a large family to keep your actions a secret.  Obtuse as most men are, with things going on right under their eyes, it is not easy to baffle them when once their curiosity is roused.  And yet curiosity is always imputed exclusively to women!  Though Eve was the first to taste the apple, Adam had no intention of being behindhand.  I know a man who always manages to get down to breakfast five minutes before the rest of his family, for the purpose of examining the correspondence all round.

Fortunately I managed to escape from these inquisitive eyes, for I met the postman myself when he brought back my first tale.  It was returned with the Editor’s “compliments and thanks,” coupled with the regret that he could not make use of my contribution.

I don’t know that I ever felt such keen disappointment as when that tale came back from its first visit.  I had hoped so much from it, and had been so confident of its success.  It depressed me for some time, and it was long before I ventured upon anything in the literary way again.  But habit is second nature, they say, so after that and other tales had been the round of all the magazines and returned to their ancestral home, decidedly the worse for their outings (change of air evidently does not agree with MSS.), they affected me no more than the receipt of a tradesman’s circular.  In fact I grew quite to welcome them as old friends, and no one would have been more astonished than I had they been converted into L s. d.

Apparently I am not cut out for literary work.  I have not sufficient imagination, nor am I sceptical enough for this fanciful and scientific age.  The world only cares for impossible adventures and magic stories, or stories which undermine their religion or upset it altogether, and I am not clever enough for this.

Of course, in my pecuniary need I did not neglect to employ a “chancellor of the exchequer,” as Miss.  Mathers calls her; a “wardrobe keeper,” as she terms herself.  Indeed, I employed two or three, and so had plenty of opportunities of observing the type.

These women certainly vary in the way they carry on business, but very rarely do they vary in appearance.  For the fattest, ugliest, oiliest old creatures to be found anywhere, commend me to a Chancellor!  I pause in astonishment sometimes, and wonder how they have the strength to carry so much flesh about with them.

The first one I engaged possessed a complexion of a glowing yellow, like unto the petals of an alamander.  She carried on the business in a too independent way altogether.  She would take up my garments, look them over with a contemptuous sniff (what eloquence there is in a sniff!), and then begin to talk of the “ilegant costoomes she ’ad ’ad lately of Lady ——­, of the ’ansome silks and furs purchased from the Countess of ——­,” &c.  It was cunningly and knowingly done.  Immediately, as was intended, my productions began to lose value in my eyes, in contrast to her gorgeous descriptions.  Finally she would state her price, and by no art or persuasion would she give way a penny afterwards.