Chapter II: Part 2

"Ah, is he?"

"Heaven forgive me these dreadful lies," I whispered softly to myself.

"Let us go to him," he said, snatching the clock suddenly from my hands. And I had never intended to let the property get out of my possession again! This man was adroit; he might be one too many for me after all, if I betrayed the slightest doubt of him, or made anything like a scene. He was fidgeting with something in the right pocket of his snuffy, old greatcoat too--perhaps there was a pistol there--I was almost sure there was a pistol!

"Yes, let us go to him, Mr. Youson," I said. "I'm sure he or I will make you a handsome offer; he's just the fellow to put down his hundreds. Isaac, get me my hat--any hat or cap, anything you can find--only look alive. I am going round to Mr. Bender's with this gentleman."

"Where's Ben----" began that stupid ass of a boy, but I checked him with a malevolent and meaning glance, and the youth, looking frightened, dived into the back parlour in search of my head-gear. He came out with a straw hat, with a ticket on it, but I did not notice anything in my excitement. I pined to be in the open with this miscreant, who had put the clock into his pocket. With a policeman in view, on the far horizon at the end of the street, my happiest hour would have arrived.

We sallied forth together, I keeping very close to him, lest he should grow suspicious and make up his mind to run. Every minute did I expect that he would plunge into the middle of the road and tear madly down the street. And it was a trouble to keep by the side of him; the people were streaming home from work, were out marketing, looking for something cheap for tea or supper to be bought off the barrows which were flanking the kerbstones. Side by side, we got jostled occasionally, the pavement being narrow and the people thickish, and twice I caught surreptitiously at the hem of his garment when I thought that we were going to be separated. And, as usual, there was not a policeman on the beat anywhere--no sign of official force--nothing but men and women, boys and girls, the boys terribly in the way, and after the girls!

"Do you call this a few doors off?" said Youson, snappishly, at last.

"Comparatively--oh, yes."

"It looks like half-a-mile," he grumbled.

"Another minute or two, Mr. Youson. I am sorry you are so pressed for time."

"So am I. Not but what I have had about enough of your company, with that ridiculous hat of yours over your eyes," he added, ungraciously. "I wish I had never come near your infernal shop. You are about the slowest tradesman I have ever encountered."

"It does not pay to be too fast in my line of business."

"Oh, I don't blame you, I don't blame you, sir; I only say I wish----what are you jumping at? Ain't you well? Are you subject to anything?" he asked. "Spasms or twitches?"

I had seen a policeman on the other side of the way, standing under the shop-blind of a cheesemonger's shop, talking to the young man with the apron who was in charge, grinning from ear to ear with him, and grossly neglecting his duty, which was to keep a sharp look out at what was going on up and down the street.

"Where are you off to now?" asked Mr. Youson.

"Bender's is over the way."

"What, the butterman's?"

"No, no, but just by there. Come along. Mind this horse and cart; I should not like you to get run over with _that_ in your pocket," I said, almost incoherently.

Mr. Youson gave a short double-knock sort of a laugh.

"What, you are getting anxious about the clock, after all?"

"I am indeed."

We had reached the other side of the way, and the policeman had turned his back upon us--just like him!--and was staring straight into the shop. There was a row of egg-boxes full of eggs of all sizes and prices and ages in front of the premises. Suddenly, I sprang like a panther upon my prey, flung my arms round Youson's neck, and yelled, at the top of my lungs, for "Help!" and for the "Police!"

"Damn--confound it, sir--what!"--gurgled forth Youson, in his supreme astonishment; then we both staggered, our feet went from under us, and, locked in each other's arms, we sat down, all of a heap, in the "28 a shilling, not warranted," compartment, and a hideous crackling, as of a subdued and squashy landslip, went on beneath our writhing forms.

"Oh, good Lord!" exclaimed the young butterman, throwing up both arms in his despair, "here's a go!"

"Here--hullo--what the blazes are you two blokes hup to?" cried the policeman, catching us both by the collars of our coats and shaking us; "this is a nice place to begin larking, I must say."

"It is not larking," I exclaimed, getting on my feet, a hideous mass of egg-shells and indifferent egg-flip; "it's highway robbery! This man is in possession of my property--proceeds of a burglary--I'm Kippen, the pawnbroker, No. 319; he's got my clock in his pocket now. I--I give him in charge, constable, I give him in charge! Why don't you catch hold of him?"

"The man's mad!" ejaculated Mr. Youson, "raving mad. Somebody catch hold of _him_."

There was a big crowd round us--it doesn't take long to get up a mob in Bermondsey--and the proprietor of the cheesemonger's shop, who had emerged from his caves of double Gloucester, was wanting to make a case of his own out of it all, and run the two of us in. The policeman was bewildered, and Mr. Youson was beside himself with ungovernable rage.

"He has got the clock in his pocket," I repeated.

"Yes, I know I have a clock in my pocket," he spluttered, "you--you rascal--you unmitigated----"

"It's my clock. I can swear to it," I yelled. "I've plenty of witnesses to prove it's mine."

"You'd better both come round to the station-house," said the policeman; "do you charge him with taking your clock, sir?" he added to me.

"I do."

"Very well."

We went off to the station-house, Mr. Youson and I, the policeman and the cheesemonger, and a grand procession in the rear of about fifteen hundred persons with nothing to do. The cheesemonger and I conversed amicably _en route_, when he had become thoroughly convinced that I was a brother tradesman, resident at the far end of the street. He understood the case then--he grasped the situation--but he could not for the life of him make out, he said, why we had sat down in the middle of his eggs to argue the point. Who was answerable for all the damage, he should like to know? I didn't know, I told him, and I was damaged materially so far as wearing apparel went, I delicately intimated, by the indifferent quality of his eggs. That you cannot get reliable eggs for twenty-eight a shilling in the winter season, in Bermondsey, is a miserable fact, and discreditable to the reputation of French poultry.

I had never been in such a mess in my life, but I was in a greater mess the next day. It's a long story, that of the examination at the police station, and I will spare the reader the harassing details. Mr. Youson, in his confusion, made a very rambling statement of how he came into possession of the clock, prejudiced the Inspector against him, and got himself locked up, and I was told to call the next day at the Police Court in Blackman Street and explain matters, and bring my witnesses. I did so, and brought a neighbour or two who had seen the clock upon my mantelpiece at Streatham, and I clinched the argument with Mrs. Kibbey, who shed copious tears during the evidence, till the magistrate asked her sharply what she was snivelling at, when she fainted dead away under the reproof, and had to be carried from the witness-box into the fresh air to recover.

It was a clear case, however, against Mr. Youson, everybody considered, and he was remanded for a week, without bail, whilst enquiries as to his antecedents were to be vigorously made. There was a very grave suspicion, the Inspector whispered confidentially into my ear, along with some strong puffs of gin and peppermint which impregnated his breathing apparatus dreadfully, that Youson was one of a desperate gang of Lambeth burglars, for whom the police had been searching for some time.

There was a woman's scream in court when Youson was remanded, and the magistrate, who was certainly in a bad temper that morning, said that he would commit anybody for contempt who made such a noise as that again, and then the next case was called, and I was outside in Blackman Street, Borough.

I had, with some difficulty and a little pleasure, lodged the hysterical Mrs. Kibbey in a Streatham omnibus, and was making my way thoughtfully down King Street to my Bermondsey premises, when someone touched me on the arm. I looked round, and was considerably surprised to find a pale, grave young woman of some thirty years of age, poorly but neatly clad, keeping step with me on the narrow pavement.

"I beg pardon, sir, but you are Mr. Kippen, I think?"

"Yes, my name is Kippen."

"I wanted to speak to you. I wanted so much to see you before this case came on. My name is Youson, Lucinda Youson," she said, hurriedly.

"God bless me, is it though? You are----"

"Mr. Youson's daughter."

"My good woman, I hope you are not going to bother me," I said, imploringly; "the case is out of my hands. I am bound over to prosecute. It was a shameful robbery."

"My father did not rob you, Mr. Kippen. Does he look like a thief?"

"I don't know what he looks like."

"You don't know the truth," she said quickly. "Perhaps you don't know what kindness is, or charity--some people don't. You would not wait for him to explain, and you have nearly killed us with anxiety. We--we did not know what had become of him."

"Killed _us_," I repeated, vacantly; "are there many of you?"

"My sister-in-law and her little boy, and myself. And the boy is dying--that's the worst of it--oh! poor little chap, that is the worst of it! And his grandfather was so fond of him; he was selling the clock so that the boy and his mother should go away to Madeira, the only chance to save him, sir. The only chance that was left.

"And so he thought he would sell something valuable that did not belong to him, and go to Madeira at my expense, and----"

"You must not say my father stole it--you dare not!" she cried, and her eyes literally flashed fire at me. This young woman was as impulsive as her felonious father. Here was another scene likely to spring up in the street if I were not particularly careful, and I had had enough of demonstrations in the public highway.

"My good woman, what is it that you want with me?"

"I want you to hear how that clock came into my father's possession, and then--and then prosecute him if you can. And at your peril, sir--please to understand, at your peril, though I utter no threats."

"It strikes me you do."

"No--no--I don't mean that," she cried. "Heaven help me, I am almost distracted, I am not myself to-day, and you will listen? It will not cost you anything to listen to me, sir, will it?"

She laid her hand upon my arm entreatingly--she had very earnest brown eyes, and I was not, as I thought, wholly unsusceptible to the influence of brown eyes upon the nervous system. And as she had delicately intimated that listening would not cost me anything, why should I object to listen to her? We were both going the same way. Of course, I should hear a good roundabout story--a second edition of her father's rigmarole which had prejudiced the magistrate against him--but I was not bound in any way to believe a word that she said.

It sounded uncommonly like truth though, and took me very much aback when she said suddenly--

"Yes, that clock was stolen from you. We knew it was stolen--and who stole it."

"But you just said----"

"That my father did not steal it. God bless him, no. He did not know--did not dream that we knew--did not know anything about it in any way--does not to this day. It was his property, he thought--all that was left of any value in the world to him; and it had belonged to his son--his eldest son, my half-brother, who----"

"Who was the thief. The infernal----"

"Please don't, sir. He is dead."

"Oh! I beg your pardon. I didn't--know," I found myself saying in an apologetic manner which really surprised myself.

"Yes, sir, he was the thief," she said, sinking her voice into a whisper almost. "He committed suicide two months ago abroad, but we have kept the truth back from father. He wasn't to know--it would have broken his heart, he was so proud of his son, always. But before my half-brother died--he had gone to Canada, to make a home for Kitty and her boy, he said--he wrote to Kitty that he was a repentant man, and that, unknown to any of us, he had been for years in bad hands, working with them, stealing with them. Our poor father thought he was a traveller for a Manchester firm, and so did we, until that terrible confession came across the sea to us. We were not to tell father--we were to make all the restitution that we could presently; he would send full instructions what we were to do by the next mail, he wrote, and the next mail only told us of his death."

"And your father?"

"Kitty and I have fought hard to keep the truth from him--the truth would have broken his heart. Why the news of his son's death nearly did, sir. And he has had so much trouble--so many losses too--and we have been for the last six months so very hard driven to live. Of late days father wished to sell this clock, but we would not let him--we were sure it had been stolen, and we hoped to find the owner some day."

"But not like this, I suppose?"

"Oh! no, not like this. But when little Willie got very ill; when residence abroad for a few months might save him, the doctor said--it was only yesterday he told us that--father took the clock out of the house unknown to us, and--and came at once to you. He is so very impetuous, poor father."

"Ah! is he? And who put the clock in working order, may I ask?"

"I did."

"You!"

"I was brought up to the watch-making--I am rather clever at it, they say."

"Clever. By George, I should think you were! Why, in a business like mine you would be invaluable."

"I was always handy with my fingers."

"So was your half-brother--it seems to run in the family."

"Oh!"

"I beg pardon," I said, for the second time. "I--I did not mean to say that. It slipped out promiscuously."

"Never mind, sir--never mind," she said hurriedly. "What are you going to do? Pray tell me what you think of doing when I prove the truth of this."

"If it's all true--and I believe it is already, Miss Youson--I--I am going to withdraw from the prosecution, and ask your father to bring an action against me for illegal detention."

"Oh! he would never think of such a thing."

And he never did. The story was quite true, every word of it, and we arranged to keep it from the old man, so far as the peculiar profession of his first-born was concerned. He never knew _that_. I got rather intimate with the Youson family by degrees, although our acquaintance had begun so inauspiciously. Rather intimate, I say--well, very intimate, rather! would be a clear expression, if a trifle inelegant.

For I married that girl, and pensioned off Mrs. Kibbey, and I never did such a fine stroke of business in all my life. The old man--he was a fine old fellow, too--went to Madeira with Kitty and the boy, and I bore Lucinda off to Streatham. She is one of the best of wives, and so very handy in the business too--saves me a heap of money. It was a lucky day for me when that rascal of a half-brother of hers broke burglariously into Golden Birch Villa, and took away everything that had an atom's worth of precious metal in its composition. It was a blessing very much in disguise, but it has answered its purpose thoroughly well. I am as happy as the day is long--and so is Lucinda. Everybody tells me that I secured a treasure when I took her for better, for worse. Everybody but Mrs. Kibbey--past housekeeper, and living with her sister now in the Cookshops Almshouses at Caterham--and she says I could have done much better for myself, long before, if I had only looked about me in a sensible and practical sort of way.

"Lions in Their Dens."

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III.--GEORGE NEWNES AT PUTNEY.

BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON.

(_Photographs by Messrs. Fradelle & Young._)

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As I toiled up the hill which leads to Putney Heath, I met a small boy, of whom I asked the way to Mr. George Newnes's house. To my astonishment he did not know where it was. I gazed at him more in sorrow than in anger. "What! not know where _Tit-Bits_ lives!" a smart lad standing by ejaculated, as he pointed out to me the right direction in which to go. "George Newnes! 'im wot writes _Tit-Bits_! wy I thought everyone knowed w'ere 'ee lived!" I thanked him, and wandered on half-a-mile or so until I reached the beautiful house which the "writer" of _Tit-Bits_ built for himself some years ago. Here I was received by Mr. George Newnes with a welcome which left nothing to be desired in the way of hearty kindness. Mr. Newnes is a man of middle height, very good-looking, with auburn beard, and hair dashed with grey. Though exceedingly wealthy, he is not, as somebody has well expressed it, "beastly rich." No feeling of the oppression of newly-acquired wealth flooded my soul as I walked about the pretty house and grounds in his company. He and his surroundings have the good taste not to obtrude themselves upon the casual visitor. The man is simplicity itself, and the most genial and cordial of hosts. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit, nor was it without infinite interest, for George Newnes is a companion always amusing, and with always something new and original to say. As we wandered through the beautiful grounds, some of which are reclaimed from the wild heath which stretches for miles round the house, he pointed out to me the curious obelisk, grey and time-worn, which still perpetuates the memory of the historic mansion once known as "Fireproof." For it was here that George III. and Queen Charlotte once breakfasted in peace in the drawing room upstairs, whilst the dining-room below was purposely ignited to prove that the house was really fireproof. Upon one side of the house stand the stables, just beyond them a beautiful covered lawn-tennis court lighted by electricity and heated with hot water, in which play can go on by night as well as by day, in winter just as much as in summer. "We miss this tennis court dreadfully when we are in Devonshire," said Mr. Newnes, as we quitted the beautiful hall for the house. "I am myself devoted to tennis and golfing, and, indeed, I sometimes think it is that that has helped me to get through so much work. Good players generally make good workers," he added, with a laugh. "Now will you come and join our party at luncheon?" and as he spoke he led the way into a handsome dining-room. At luncheon the conversation dealt chiefly with sport and games, to my own great relief be it added, for the dweller in the tents of the literary world hears but little of the ordinary topics of conversation, and becomes suffocated, if he be not to the manner born, with the nauseating cant and self-sufficiency which is so typical of the literary world of to-day, and more especially typical of its younger members. But at George Newnes's house you hear but little shop. We discussed golf and its rapidly increasing popularity, the newest "serve" at tennis, and some of the most remarkable cricket scores made during the past season.

The host joined eagerly in our talk until interrupted by the servant, who brought in a message. Quitting us for a moment, he returned with a smiling apology, and told me that in that brief space of time he had transacted a piece of business which certainly was not without its interest. A gentleman, it appeared--the son of a celebrated _litterateur_ of a past day--had called to show some beautiful drawings by the celebrated "Dicky" Doyle, a relation of Dr. Conan Doyle. With Mr. Newnes--and it is thoroughly characteristic of the man--to close with a good bargain is but the work of a moment, and therefore I was not surprised, as he placed the dainty pictures before me, to learn that he had purchased them for reproduction in his world-famed magazine. After luncheon, Mr. Newnes suggested that we should retire to his billiard-room, to reach which we had to pass through his own special sanctum in which he dictates his letters, &c., to his private secretary--energetic Mr. William Plank, who has been with him for five hard working years--while he walks up and down the room. "I can always think better whilst I walk," he explained to me; "indeed, I have recently had the study lengthened to give me more room." By this time we were in the billiard-room, wherein stands a large English organ with upwards of four hundred pipes. And in this room, prowling round and round the billiard-table like a couple of wild beasts--for I also, like my host, think best upon my legs--and occasionally cannoning up against one another and recoiling with a laugh and a start, George Newnes told me the history of his interesting and successful life.

"My father," he began, "was, at the time of my birth, the minister of Glenorchy Chapel, Matlock Bath. He was a very able man, and the best informed man you could meet. He kept me at school till I was about sixteen. I finished up at the City of London School, and, curiously enough, I am going to-night to reply for the House of Commons at a banquet given by the John Carpenter Club in honour of the Home Secretary, who was a City of London School boy. My father put me into a house of business in the City, at which I remained for a number of years, and then I went down to Lancashire to open up a branch of the business there. I settled in Manchester and married, there. One night, in 1880, when I was sitting at home reading the _Manchester Evening News_--and, by the way, it has never occurred to me before," added Mr. Newnes, as a sudden thought flashed into his mind, "the very people who printed that paper were the same people who afterwards printed _Tit-Bits_ for ten years--I came across a story, or some interesting account, which very much pleased me. I read it to my wife and said, 'There, that's what I call a real "tit-bit." This paper, but for it, is to-day decidedly dull, because there is absolutely no news to put in it. Now, why cannot a paper be brought out which should contain nothing but "tit-bits" similar to this?'"

"And that really," said I, much interested, as Mr. George Newnes paused for a moment in his journey round the billiard-table, and gazed absently at me while I lit a cigar and threw myself into an armchair, "and that really is how _Tit-Bits_ came to be first thought of?"

"Yes," he replied, as he started off once more, and I rose to follow in his track, "that was the _first_ idea of my little green paper. But I was a whole year before I was able to carry it out. I was very busy in other matters, and had not much time to attend to it. But I never lost sight of the idea, and ever and anon the word 'tit-bits' would come to me with the force of a warning dream. I worked continually at the idea in my mind, and all my leisure thoughts were given up to it. In fact, I was constantly afraid--so convinced was I that the idea was a good one--that someone would bring it out before I could do so, and every Saturday morning, the usual day for new weekly papers, I used to look almost with painful anxiety to see whether there was a placard announcing that such a paper had appeared. But, however, nothing of the sort was brought out. The more I thought of it the more enamoured I became of the idea, till, in October, 1881, the first number appeared." And as he spoke Mr. Newnes handed me the very first number of the now celebrated paper. "As soon as it was fairly started," continued my host, "I gave up my other business and devoted myself to the editing and publishing of the paper. At first, the chief pieces in it were selected from books and periodicals--any sources, in short, that were not copyright. I would get an anecdote from one book, and something else from another, anything interesting, in fact, from wherever I could pick it up; of course, now we have a large list of original contributors, but at first that was the way in which it was compiled. In the early days, naturally enough, its circulation was confined chiefly to Manchester. There it simply 'caught on' immediately, and sold like wildfire. Why, the newspaper boys' brigade," continued Mr. Newnes, now fairly excited at the memory of that eventful Saturday morning, "sold something like 5,000 copies in two hours of the first number in Manchester alone. They came rushing back to the office, where I sat anxiously awaiting their news, full of the wonderful result. _Tit-Bits_ was then, I felt certain, an assured success, and the public used to write to me to tell me of its popularity. I receive letters to this day, and especially from ministers and clergymen, who write to say that they recommend it because of the information it contains, and its instructive character, and, above all, because of the purity of its contents. Yet there are some clergymen who think there is some _double entendre_ in the title _Tit-Bits_, and from its title that it is probably a paper they ought to speak against; and often, solely on account of its title, I believe they bracket it with all kinds of other literature of a low-class type, and in this way I suffer from the name."

"And how was it you came to inaugurate your system of insurance against railway accidents?" I asked Mr. Newnes, after a brief discussion on the ridiculous and narrow-minded behaviour of these worthy clerics. "It was in this way," he replied, as he brought himself to an anchor against the billiard-table, where he rested for a brief moment. "It was in this way: A woman wrote to me saying that her husband had been killed on the railway, and as he had a copy of _Tit-Bits_ upon him at the time, she asked whether I would make her some allowance of money. At once the idea of an insurance system occurred to me, and you know now how widespread this system has become."

I smiled as I noted how in each case his wonderful successes are owing not more to the flash of a striking idea than to the wonderful promptitude which follows on the thought; how remarkable an instance his whole career affords of the benefit and wisdom of striking while the iron is hot.

"And then after _Tit-Bits_ came the _Review of Reviews_, I suppose?" I queried, as my host jotted down some notes in his pocket-book.

"Yes," he replied, as he once more took the floor. "That was one of the quickest arranged things I have ever heard of. It was all done in a month. I was staying down at Torquay, where I have a house for the winter, and Mr. Stead wrote to me to say he contemplated leaving the _Pall Mall Gazette_, and would like to be associated with me in some journalistic scheme. He sent descriptions of three which were passing through his mind, asking if I would care to take either of them into consideration. I replied by return, saying that I did not care for two of them much, but that I was delighted with the third. I then and there told him the terms upon which I would work with him. He wrote back, saying that he would accept them, and I came to London the following week, in order that I might make arrangements, and in thirty days from the first proposal of the idea, the _Review of Reviews_ was published. At first it was decided to call it _The Sixpenny Monthly_, with a sub-title, _A Review of the Reviews_; as such, indeed, it appeared upon the cover till the day before going to press, which was a Sunday. I was so convinced that the title ought to be reversed, and that it should be _The Review of Reviews, a Sixpenny Monthly_, that I went over and waylaid Mr. Stead as he was coming with his family out of church. I explained my views to him, and in a few minutes he agreed that I was right, and the title was altered to that which has now become so familiar. Well, when the _Review of Reviews_ went out of my field of vision, I had made certain arrangements with people for publishing magazine work, and so on, and I wanted something to take its place. Then came to me a very old and favourite idea of mine--the idea of a _magazine with a picture on every page_! I engaged the services of Mr. Greenhough Smith, now my assistant editor on the _Strand Magazine_, who had the idea of largely producing translations from foreign authors, and as soon as the _Review of Reviews_ had gone, I was at work on the new venture."

"And, with regard to its title, Mr. Newnes," said I, "you are great on titles, are you not?" "I attach great importance to them, certainly," he vigorously replied. "I thoroughly agree with Shakespeare that there is much in a name. Why, indeed, should names be valueless? They are as great facts as anything else in the constitutions of humanity. And in the journalistic world a name is half the battle. _The Strand_ was a good title, it appeared to me, short, and at the same time attractive. After all, it is through the Strand itself that the tide of life flows fullest and strongest and deepest. I felt that with a good picture on the cover it would sell well on the book-stalls. The picture was rather difficult, and much depended on that picture. At first I did not succeed in getting the artist to embody my idea of a picture of a street. Now I had here at home an oil painting which I thought would help him." And as he spoke, Mr. Newnes led me to the staircase and showed me a very charming perspective of some street in an English town. "I showed Mr. Haite this picture," he continued, "and I asked him if he could do a similar perspective of the Strand."

_The Picture Magazine_, which started with this year, is likely to be nearly as successful as _The Strand_. After we had discussed the position and the prospects of the new paper which Mr. Newnes has started to fill the place in the Radical journalistic ranks of the _P.M.G._, we drifted into a general conversation on his habits of life, his occupations, and the varied qualities which go to the making of a successful business man, the future of popular journalism, and the like. "How do you manage to keep all your irons hot?" I asked my host; "you edit three papers, you are a member of Parliament, you build railways up the cliffs of popular watering-places, you play games, you do everything. How is it all done, pray, Mr. Newnes? What is the secret of your life?" "Well," he slowly replied, and with a certain shy hesitation, for though prompt and energetic enough in actual business, no more modest man, or one more reluctant to speak of himself and his doings walks this earth--"well, though I don't want to boast about it, yet the simple fact is, I work very quickly, and I get through my business much faster than most men do. I make up my mind, form my plans, and arrive at conclusions very rapidly. With regard to my editorial work, for instance, all 'copy' for the papers is sifted for me at the office, then it is sent up here, where I work three days a week, selecting that which I think shall go in, and marking it for press. I dictate the 'Answers to Correspondents' page to my private secretary. This page always takes up three hours a week. I get through my editorial, parliamentary and business work, and manage to get a good deal of leisure besides. Golf, tennis and chess take up my leisure. When I am in the country I have all my work sent there. The fact is, _I work hard and I play hard_, and I believe each is equally necessary for good health and real happiness. Curiously enough, I do not believe that naturally I am of a very systematic nature, but so much business forces me to be so."

"And as to the future of journalism generally, and of such papers as yours in particular, Mr. Newnes?" I queried. "With the spread of education and the increase of Board Schools, there is a great change coming over the masses, is there not?" "I think this," he replied, "that many of the papers of the day are developing too much the gambling and lottery spirit, which I regard as a very evil one, and would not for a moment countenance. I think, as you say, that the Board Schools have immensely increased the number of buyers of papers of this kind, and it is a great source of satisfaction to me that I should have inaugurated a popular paper which should be taken largely by the masses, and which is absolutely pure. When I came out with _Tit-Bits_ there was not a single popular paper containing fun or jokes or anything of the kind--except the illustrated ones--but what relied more or less upon prurient matter to tickle the fancies of prurient minds. Besides, my idea is that, just at present, the Board Schools tend to a certain hardness and narrowness of character, which is perhaps softened down by the development by these papers of the lighter side of human nature. _Tit-Bits_, I have reason to know, has in many cases induced the study of some science or literature on the part of a man or boy who has read some interesting 'tit-bit' on one of these subjects, and has desired, naturally enough, to know more about it."

"Will it ever be possible, Mr. Newnes, do you think, to provide the masses with the higher journalism, with a sort of _Saturday Review_, or _Nineteenth Century_?" I asked. "I don't think," he slowly replied, shaking his head, "I don't think, Radical as I am, and absolute believer in the sovereignty of the people, that the masses will ever take to any paper which consists mainly of essays or leaders. They want things served up with other interesting matter, and with as much of the personal element as it is possible to give them. The masses still incline entirely to the lighter side of literature. They work hard enough in everyday life, their recreation and their literature _must_, therefore, be as light as possible."

"And now, Mr. Newnes, for one more question--a good long one," I laughingly added. "Having all your life been so successful yourself, as you look round London, with the struggle for existence, and the mingling of classes which makes that struggle for existence still harder, how do you really account for your own wonderful success, and how would you recommend others to be successful too, even though only in a small way?" "I really don't know how I can answer that question," he replied. "The only thing is, I have always been struck with the fact that so many people go about with their eyes shut, and do not see the chances which may be before them. They have no idea of doing anything beyond what they may have seen done before, and what they are told to do. They are frightened by originality lest it might be disastrous. I suppose I have been inclined to do things differently rather than the same as other people, and I have always struck while the iron was hot. That, I think, to put it very briefly, is the secret of any success which has attended my efforts."

Novel Notes.

BY JEROME K. JEROME.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY HAL HURST AND J. GULICH.

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PART XI.

Said Brown one evening, "There is but one vice, and that is selfishness. Selfishness is the seed of all sin."

Jephson was standing before the fire lighting his pipe. He puffed the tobacco into a glow, threw the match into the embers, and then said:

"And the seed of all virtue, also. Don't let us forget that."

"Sit down and get on with your work," said MacShaugnassy from the sofa where he lay at full length with his heels on a chair; "we're discussing the novel, Paradoxes not admitted during business hours."

Jephson, however, was in an argumentative mood. "Selfishness," he continued, "is merely another name for Will. Every deed, good or bad, that we do is prompted by selfishness. We are charitable to secure ourselves a good place in the next world, to make ourselves respected in this, to ease our own distress at the knowledge of suffering. One man is kind because it gives him pleasure to be kind, just as another is cruel because cruelty pleases him. A great man does his duty because to him the sense of duty done is a deeper delight than would be the ease resulting from avoidance of duty. The religious man is religious because he finds a joy in religion; the moral man moral because with his strong self-respect, viciousness would mean wretchedness. Self-sacrifice itself is only a subtle selfishness: we prefer the mental exaltation gained thereby to the sensual gratification which is the alternative reward. Man cannot be anything else but selfish. Selfishness is the law of all life. Each thing, from the farthest fixed star to the smallest insect crawling on the earth, fighting for itself according to its strength; and brooding over all, the Eternal, working for _Himself_: that is the universe."

(Copyrighted 1892 in the United States of America, by Jerome K. Jerome.)

"Have some whiskey," said MacShaugnassy; "and don't be so complicatedly metaphysical. You make my head ache."

"If all action, good and bad, spring from selfishness," replied Brown; "then there must be good selfishness and bad selfishness; and your bad selfishness is my plain selfishness, without any adjective, so we are back where we started. I say selfishness--bad selfishness--is the root of all evil, and there you are bound to agree with me."

"Not always," persisted Jephson; "I've known selfishness--selfishness according to the ordinarily accepted meaning of the term--to be productive of good actions. I can give you an instance, if you like."

"Has it got a moral?" asked MacShaugnassy, drowsily.

Jephson mused a moment. "Yes," he at length said; "a very practical moral--and one very useful to young men."

"That's the sort of story we want," said MacShaugnassy, raising himself into a sitting position. "You listen to this, Brown."

Jephson seated himself upon a chair, in his favourite attitude, with his elbows resting upon the back, and smoked for awhile in silence.

"There are three people in this story," he began; "the wife, the wife's husband, and the other man. In most dramas of this type, it is the wife who is the chief character. In this case, the interesting person is the other man.

"The wife--I saw her once: she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and the most wicked-looking; which is saying a good deal for both statements. I remember, during a walking tour one year, coming across a lovely little cottage. It was the sweetest place imaginable. I need not describe it. It was the cottage one sees in pictures, and reads of in sentimental poetry. I was leaning over the neatly-cropped hedge, drinking in its beauty, when at one of the tiny casements I saw, looking out at me, a face. It stayed there only for a moment, but in that moment the cottage had become ugly, and I hurried away with a shudder.

"That woman's face reminded me of the incident. It was an angel's face, until the woman herself looked out of it: then you were struck by the strange incongruity between tenement and tenant.

"That at one time she had loved her husband, I have little doubt. Vicious women have few vices, and sordidness is not usually one of them. She had probably married him, borne towards him by one of those waves of passion upon which the souls of animal natures are continually rising and falling. On possession, however, had quickly followed satiety, and from satiety had grown the desire for a new sensation.

"They were living at Cairo at the period; her husband held an important official position there, and by virtue of this, and of her own beauty and tact, her house soon became the centre of the Anglo-Saxon society ever drifting in and out of the city. The women disliked her, and copied her. The men spoke slightingly of her to their wives, lightly of her to each other, and made idiots of themselves when they were alone with her. She laughed at them to their faces, and mimicked them behind their backs. Their friends said it was cleverly.

"One year there arrived a young English engineer, who had come out to superintend some canal works. He brought with him satisfactory letters of recommendation, and was at once received by the European residents as a welcome addition to their social circle. He was not particularly good-looking, he was not remarkably charming, but he possessed the one thing that few women can resist in a man, and that is strength. The woman looked at the man, and the man looked back at the woman; and the drama began.

"Scandal flies swiftly through small communities. Before a month, their relationship was the chief topic of conversation throughout the quarter. In less than two, it reached the ears of the woman's husband.

"He was either an exceptionally mean or an exceptionally noble character, according to how one views the matter. He worshipped his wife--as men with big hearts and weak brains often do worship such women--with dog-like devotion. His only dread was lest the scandal should reach proportions that would compel him to take notice of it, and thus bring shame and suffering upon the woman he would have given his life to. That a man who saw her should love her seemed natural to him; that she should have grown tired of himself, a thing not to be wondered at. He was grateful to her for having once loved him, for a little while.

"As for 'the other man,' he proved somewhat of an enigma to the gossips. He attempted no secrecy; if anything, he rather paraded his subjugation--or his conquest, it was difficult to decide which term to apply. He rode and drove with her; visited her in public and in private (in such privacy as can be hoped for in a house filled with chattering servants, and watched by spying eyes); loaded her with expensive presents, which she wore openly, and papered his smoking den with her photographs. Yet he never allowed himself to appear in the least degree ridiculous; never allowed her to come between him and his work. A letter from her, he would lay aside unopened until he had finished what he evidently regarded as more important business. When boudoir and engine-shed became rivals, it was the boudoir that had to wait.

"The woman chafed under his self-control, which stung her like a lash, but clung to him the more abjectly.

"'Tell me you love me!' she would cry fiercely, stretching her white arms towards him.

"'I have told you so,' he would reply calmly, without moving.

"'I want to hear you tell it me again,' she would plead with a voice that trembled on a sob. 'Come close to me and tell it me again, again, again!'

"Then, as she lay with half-closed eyes, he would pour forth a flood of passionate words sufficient to satisfy even her thirsty ears, and afterwards, as the gates clanged behind him, would take up an engineering problem at the exact point at which half-an-hour before, on her entrance into the room, he had temporarily dismissed it.

"One day, a privileged friend put bluntly to him this question: 'Are you playing for love or vanity?'

"To which the man, after long pondering, gave this reply: ''Pon my soul, Jack, I couldn't tell you.'

"Now, when a man is in love with a woman who cannot make up her mind whether she loves him or not, we call the complication comedy; where it is the woman who is in earnest the result is generally tragedy.

"They continued to meet and to make love. They talked--as people in their position are prone to talk--of the beautiful life they would lead if it only were not for the thing that was; of the earthly paradise--or, maybe, 'earthy' would be the more suitable adjective--they would each create for the other, if only they had the right which they hadn't.

"In this work of imagination the man trusted chiefly to his literary faculties, which were considerable; the woman to her desires. Thus, his scenes possessed a grace and finish which hers lacked, but her pictures were the more vivid. Indeed, so realistic did she paint them, that to herself they seemed realities, waiting for her. Then she would rise to go towards them only to strike herself against the thought of the thing that stood between herself and them. At first the woman only hated the thing, but after a while there came an ugly look of hope into her eyes.

"The time drew near for the man to return to England. The canal was completed, and a day appointed for the letting in of the water. The man determined to make the event the occasion of a social gathering. He invited a large number of guests, among whom were the woman and her husband, to assist at the function. Afterwards the party were to picnic at a pleasant wooded spot some three-quarters of a mile from the first lock.

"The ceremony of flooding was to be performed by the woman, her husband's position entitling her to this distinction. Between the river and the head of the cutting had been left a strong bank of earth, pierced some distance down by a hole, which hole was kept closed by means of a closely-fitting steel plate. The woman drew the lever releasing this plate, and the water rushed through and began to press against the lock gates. When it had attained a certain depth, the sluices were raised and the water poured down into the deep basin of the lock.

"It was an exceptionally deep lock. The party gathered round and watched the water slowly rising. The woman looked down, and shuddered; the man was standing by her side.

"'How deep it is,' she said.

"'Yes,' he replied, 'it holds thirty feet of water, when full.'

"The water crept up inch by inch.

"'Why don't you open the gates, and let it in quickly?' she asked.

"'It would not do for it to come in too quickly,' he explained to her; 'we shall half fill this lock, and then open the sluices at the other end, and so let the water pass through.'

"The woman looked at the smooth stone walls and at the iron-plated gates.

"'I wonder what a man would do,' she said, 'if he fell in, and there was no one near to help him.'

"The man laughed. 'I think he would stop there,' he answered. 'Come, the others are waiting for us.'

"He lingered a moment to give some final instructions to the workmen. 'You can follow on when you've made all right,' he said, 'and get something to eat. There's no need for more than one to stop.' Then they joined the rest of the party, and sauntered on, laughing and talking, to the picnic ground.

"After lunch the party broke up, as is the custom of picnic parties, and wandered away in groups and pairs. The man, whose duty as host had hitherto occupied all his attention, looked for the woman, but she was gone.

"A friend strolled by, the same that had put the question to him about love and vanity.

"'Have you quarrelled?' asked the friend.

"'No,' replied the man.

"'I fancied you had,' said the other. 'I met her just now walking with her husband, of all men in the world, and making herself quite agreeable to him.'

"The friend strolled on, and the man sat down on a fallen tree, and lighted a cigar. He smoked and thought, and the cigar burnt out, but he still sat thinking.

"After a while he heard a faint rustling of the branches behind him and peering between the interlacing leaves that hid him, saw the crouching figure of the woman creeping through the wood.

"His lips were parted to call her name, when she turned her listening head in his direction, and his eyes fell full upon her face. Something about it, he could not have told what, struck him dumb, and the woman crept on.

"Gradually the nebulous thoughts floating through his brain began to solidify into a tangible idea, and the man unconsciously started forward. After walking a few steps he broke into a run, for the idea had grown clearer. It continued to grow still clearer and clearer, and the man ran faster and faster, until at last he found himself racing madly towards the lock. As he approached it he looked round for the watchman who ought to have been there, but the man was gone from his post. He shouted, but if any answer was returned, it was drowned by the roar of the rushing water.

"He reached the edge and looked down. Fifteen feet below him was the reality of the dim vision that had come to him a mile back in the woods: the woman's husband swimming round and round like a rat in a pail.

"The river was flowing in and out of the lock at the same rate, so that the level of the water remained constant. The first thing the man did was to close the lower sluices and then open those in the upper gate to their fullest extent. The water inch by inch began to rise.

"'Can you hold out?' he cried.

"The drowning man turned to him a face already contorted by the agony of exhaustion, and answered with a feeble 'No.'

"He looked around for something to throw to the man. A plank had lain there in the morning, he remembered stumbling over it, and complaining of its having been left there; he cursed himself now for his care.

"A hut used by the navvies to keep their tools in stood about two hundred yards away; perhaps it had been taken there, perhaps there he might even find a rope.

"'Just one minute, old fellow!' he shouted down, 'and I'll be back.'

"But the old fellow did not hear him. The feeble struggles ceased. The face fell back upon the water, the eyes half closed as if with weary indifference. There was no time for him to do more than kick off his riding boots and jump in and clutch the unconscious figure as it sank.

"Down there, in that walled-in trap, he fought a long fight with Death for the life that stood between him and the woman. He was not an expert swimmer, his clothes hampered him, he was already blown with his long race, the burden in his arms dragged him down, the water rose slowly enough to make his torture fit for Dante's hell.