The newspaper left him time for other literary work, and it was known to a few people that he wrote with some regularity for reviews, but all the products of his pen were anonymous.  A fact which remained his own secret was that he provided for the subsistence of his parents, old people domiciled in a quiet corner of their native Kingsmill.  The strict sobriety of life which is indispensable to success in such a career as this cost him no effort.  He smoked moderately, ate and drank as little as might be, could keep his health on six hours of sleep, and for an occasional holiday liked to walk his twenty or thirty miles.  Earwaker was naturally marked for survival among the fittest.

On an evening of June in the year ’84, he was interrupted whilst equipping himself for dinner abroad, by a thunderous rat-tat-tat.

‘You must wait, my friend, whoever you are,’ he murmured placidly, as he began to struggle with the stiff button-holes of his shirt.

The knock was repeated, and more violently.

‘Now there’s only one man of my acquaintance who knocks like that,’ he mused, elaborating the bow of his white tie.  ’He, I should imagine, is in Brazil; but there’s no knowing.  Perhaps our office is on fire.—­Anon, anon!’

He made baste to don waistcoat and swallow-tail, then crossed his sitting-room and flung open the door of the chambers.

‘Ha!  Then it is you!  I was reminded of your patient habits.’

A tall man, in a light overcoat and a straw hat of spacious brim, had seized both his hands, with shouts of excited greeting.

’Confound you!  Why did you keep me waiting?  I thought I had missed you for the evening.  How the deuce are you?  And why the devil have you left me without a line from you for more than six months?’

Earwaker drew aside, and allowed his tumultuous friend to rush into the nearest room.

‘Why haven’t you written?—­confound you!’ was again vociferated, amid bursts of boyish laughter.  ‘Why hasn’t anybody written?’

’If everybody was as well informed of your movements as I, I don’t wonder,’ replied the journalist.  ’Since you left Buenos Ayres, I have had two letters, each containing twenty words, which gave me to understand that no answer could by possibility reach you.’

’Humbug!  You could have written to half-a-dozen likely places.  Did I really say that?  Ha, ha, ha!—­Shake hands again, confound you!  How do you do?  Do I look well?  Have I a tropical colour?  I say, what a blessed thing it was that I got beaten down at Wattleborough!  All this time I should have been sitting in the fog at Westminster.  What a time I’ve had!  What a time I’ve had!’