I shrugged my shoulders regretfully. "I'm not rich enough to indulge in such pastime: I must soon get to work."
The next morning I was told that some one wanted to see me at the door. I went there and found a groom with a dog-cart, who handed me a letter from Lord C-, begging me to accept the dog-cart and horse and drive down to Salcombe. "My groom," he added, "knows every foot of the way and I'm not using him for the next month. You've done me a very good turn; I hope you'll allow me to do you one. Only one thing I ask-that you'll not mention anything about the betting episode." But after forty years there can be no harm in recalling it.
Next day, after thanking Lord C- for his splendid present, I set off for Salcombe and about a fortnight later called upon Mr. Froude in his house on a cliff overlooking the bay. I was ushered into a delightful room and gave the servant Carlyle's letter to take to Mr. Froude. In a few moments Froude came in with the letter in his hand. He was tall and slight, of scholarly, ascetic appearance. "An extraordinary letter," he began. "You know what Carlyle says in it?"
"No, I don't," I replied. "I put it in my pocket when he gave it to me, and when I took it out I found it had stuck and I never opened it. I knew it would be friendly and more than fair."
"It's very astonishing," Froude broke in. "Carlyle asks me to help you in your literary ambitions; says he 'expects more considerable things from you than from anyone he has met since parting from Emerson.' I'd be very proud if he had said it about me. Take a seat, won't you, and tell me about your meeting with him. I have always thought him the best brain, the greatest man of our tune," and the grey eyes searched me.
"He has been my hero," I said, "since I first read Latter Day Pamphlets and Heroes and Hero Worship as a cowboy in western America."
"A cowboy!" repeated Froude, as if amazed.
"It was Carlyle's advice," I went on, "that sent me for four years to German universities; and I finished my schooling with a year in Athens."
"How interesting," said Froude, who evidently did not understand that adventures come to the adventurous. We talked for an hour or more, but when he asked me to lunch as a sort of after-thought, I told him I had arranged to drive back to the near-by town and lunch with a friend. On this he assured me that he would return to London in a fortnight or so and soon after give a dinner and invite Chenery, the editor of The Times, and other people of importance in literature to meet me. He would do his best to carry out Carlyle's wishes. I thanked him, of course, warmly, while protesting that I didn't want to give him trouble. He then asked me, had I written anything he could read? I pulled out a small bound book in which I had written in my best copperplate hand a few dozen poems, chiefly sonnets, and gave it to him.
A little later we shook hands and I returned to my inn and next morning set off for London by another road. The English country pleased me hugely, it was so neat and well-kept, but there was nothing grandiose about the scenery-nothing as fine as the Catskills, nothing to compare with the enthralling beauty of eastern France, to say nothing of the Rockies!
Hardly had I left Froude when I realized that I should indeed be a fool if I trusted to his help. "Help yourself, my friend," I kept repeating to myself,
"then, if he helps, so much the better; and if he doesn't, it won't matter." I still had a couple of hundred pounds behind me.
When I reached London I sent the groom with the dog-cart and horse back to Lord C-, thanking him for a superb holiday and lovely trip. But I took care the very same day to engage rooms near the British Museum at a pound or so a week, and there I went and unpacked, first telling the Grosvenor Hotel people that I'd call once a week for letters. My acquaintance with Lord C- won me much politeness.
A morning or two later, I saw in one of the papers something about John Morley and the Fortnightly Review; the journal called it, I remember, "the most literary of our reviews." I took down the address of it in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and without losing time, went and called about nine o'clock in the morning. To my surprise, the office was a sort of shop, the publishing house of Chapman and Hall. The clerk behind the counter told me that Mr.
Chapman usually came in about eleven and if I could wait-I asked for nothing better; so I took a seat and waited.
At about ten-thirty Mr. Chapman came in, a well-made man of five feet ten or so, past the prime of life, with thinning hair and a tendency to stoutness. I got up as soon as I heard his name and said, "I'd like a few minutes with you."
He took me up to his room on the first floor and I told him how I had just returned from a visit to Froude, to whom I had taken a letter from Carlyle. He appeared greatly impressed, regretted that he had nothing for me to do; but when I spoke of working for the Fortnightly, he said I should come back in the afternoon and see Mr. Escort, who was the acting editor in place of Mr. John Morley. At four o'clock I turned up and Chapman introduced me to T. H. S.
Escott. Escort was a good-looking, personable man, very curious as to how I had come to know Carlyle and what Froude had said to me, but at the end he turned me down flatly.
"I have nothing for you to do, I'm sorry," was his curt dismissal.
"Have you never any translation?" I asked.
"Seldom," he replied, "but I'll bear you in mind!"
"Don't do that," I replied. "Let me come each day and if you've nothing to do, it won't matter. But I'll be on hand if unexpectedly you need a proof read or an article verified or anything."
"As you please," he said rudely, shrugging his shoulders, as he turned away disdainfully-I couldn't but see.
But every morning I was seated in the shop when Chapman came. He used to acknowledge my bow with an embarrassed air. When Escott arrived in the afternoon, he generally went straight up to his back room on the first floor, pretending not even to see me. After about a week Chapman asked me up to his room one day and told me politely that I must see now there was nothing for me to do: would it not be better to try elsewhere rather than wait about? I felt sure Escott had suggested this to him.
I said I hoped I was not bothering him; I would soon have regular work; I'd tell him as soon as I succeeded; meantime, I hoped he would not mind my being on hand.
"No, no!" he hastened to say. "It's for your sake I'm speaking; I only wish I had something for you to do." On this I smiled and went away till the next day, when again I was in my place as before.
Meanwhile I was fitting another string to my bow; I had got to know A. R.
Cluer, now a county court judge, on a railway journey, and almost at once we became friends by dint of similarity of taste and interests. He had rooms in the Temple and one day he asked me why I did not try to get work on the Spectator. He advised me to ask Escott to give me an introduction to the chief editor, Hutton. But I would not ask Escott for any favour, and so there and then Cluer went round with me to the Spectator office and saw me enter.
When the clerk came, I said, "I want to see Mr. Hutton!"
"Have you an appointment?"
"No," I replied, and at the same time I took out a sovereign and laid it before him. "Tell me where Mr. Hutton is," I said, "and that pound is yours."
"On the second floor," whispered the clerk hastily. "But you won't give me away, will you?"