Clem­ency Lyd­iard lived in Salis­bury Square, two pair of stairs up over Dun­ning the law-sta­tioner’s, with her mother and her brother and her sis­ter and everything that had come with them from Bread Street; and she wrote The Mor­timers of Mount Street for Mr. Bal­dock’s Lud­gate at seven guineas a num­ber, which was the rent and the coals and a little over, and nobody in Lon­don knew it but her­self and Mr. Bal­dock, who had been care­ful not to. She priced every shop she went into, be­cause there was noth­ing in the rooms in Salis­bury Square that had not once been some­thing else. A sheet and a half of the Mor­timers was due in Pater­noster Row on the tenth of every month, and the next on the tenth of No­vem­ber; and be­fore the week was out, though she had not the least idea of it, she was to hear what it would fetch.

Fleet Street on the Wed­nes­day of Car­lile’s trial was full of Guild­hall. It had been sit­ting since the morn­ing be­fore, and the street had no way of learn­ing how it went but to stand about and be told; so that it stood about, in door­ways and in ap­rons, look­ing east, and a woman going along the pave­ment with a note in her glove and no par­cel was for once in nobody’s way, and might have walked into any shop in Lon­don.

She walked into Tay­lor and Hes­sey’s.

It was Kit’s doing. Mr. Pel­ham had be­spoken a book in the spring, to dis­pute with, and it had come; and Kit, who was kept at the Inn by the Dal­gleish busi­ness, had writ­ten the shop’s dir­ec­tion on the back of a bill, with a line to say that there was a pamph­let over, and a shil­ling for it. The Dal­gleish busi­ness was a week old and showed no sign of set­tling: the Inn had it that Mr. Dal­gleish of Crown Office Row wrote the Warden, and Mr. Dal­gleish could not get any­body to be­lieve

that he did not. Clem­ency had said that she would go. She had said it as she said most things to Kit, as though it cost noth­ing. Fleet Street was her own street, and the shop was in it, and she had never been in­side.

She had looked at the win­dow, be­cause one does. Among the ser­mons there lay open a poem in four books, with a title out of the Greek, which the town had been told a year ago to des­pise and had been des­pising on trust ever since; and be­side it stood a card in the house’s own hand to say that poems by a North­amp­ton­shire Peas­ant were forth­com­ing. She read the card as she read all cards, for the price. It had none. It was the only thing in the win­dow that was not yet for sale, and she thought that very good man­ners in a book.

Then the smell met her at the door: new paper, and size, and the sweet­ish calf-and-paste of the binder’s, which she had known these six months from the far side of Mr. Bal­dock’s door and had not ex­pec­ted to find on this side of Lud­gate; and she went in, and priced it, be­cause she could not help it. The stock at so many hun­dreds. The lease at so much. The elder shop­man’s coat, which had been turned, and well, by a wife who minded it. It was a shop that had been built for people to stay in; and at the far end of the counter, with a roll of pa­pers under his arm, a young man was stay­ing in it, and look­ing at the back of the card in the win­dow with the ex­pres­sion of a rival book­seller or a cred­itor.

She gave Kit’s note to the elder shop­man, who wrapped the book and cast up the ac­count on the mar­gin of the bill, and said, “Six­teen shil­lings, Miss.”

“Fif­teen and six,” said Clem­ency.

“Fif­teen and six,” said the young man at the end of the counter.

They said it to­gether, in the same key, like two clocks in one house; and she looked round, and he looked round; and she, who had been pri­cing him from the boots up­ward, as she priced every­body, and had got as far as the coat, which had been a good one once and had been worn since by some­body who did not look at coats, found that she had lost count.

He was not hand­some. He was not tall: they were of a height, or very nearly, which with a man she did not often have oc­ca­sion to no­tice. He had a great quant­ity of hair, brown where it lay in the shade and gold where the win­dow caught it, and curl­ing as though it were paid to; and a mouth whose upper lip stood a little for­ward of the lower, as if it were al­ways half a sen­tence in front of the rest of him. And he had eyes. She tried them hazel, and that would not do; she tried them dark, and that was worse. They were

large, and they were en­tirely oc­cu­pied. It was the nearest she could come to them af­ter­wards, and she gave the ac­count to nobody. Whatever he looked at was, for the length of the look­ing, the only thing in Lon­don; and just now it was a lady in a grey gown, and a sum.

“I beg your par­don,” he said. “I had it in my head, and I never in my life had a sum right be­fore, and I am a great deal too pleased to be sorry.”

The shop­man checked it with a pen­cil, found him­self six­pence out, and laid it to Car­lile, who was up­set­ting the whole street; and went into the back to look for the pamph­let, and left the two of them at the counter with the sum be­tween them, like a dog neither had brought.

“You do it al­ways,” said the young man.

“In a shop, whenever I am in one.”

“It must be ex­haust­ing.”

“It is the only rest I have.” She had not meant to say it. It was a thing she said to Kit, and Kit never listened. “And you?”

“I am ob­liged to guess, and I have been very un­lucky.” He laughed, shortly, at him­self, in the man­ner of a man who has been doing it for some time and has grown fond of the sound. “I have walked from West­min­ster this af­ter­noon to hear what the new people in the Row are going to pay, and I have not got as far as the Row. They say ten guineas a num­ber, in the street, to any­one who can put two sen­tences to­gether. I have it from three quar­ters and be­lieve it in none. You look as if you would know.”

Clem­ency, who had had the Row’s let­ter in the fus­tian port­fo­lio since Sat­urday, with the seal un­broken and the fig­ure in it already told her by Mr. Bal­dock, said that she be­lieved it was the fig­ure.

“For a thing they have not read.”

“For a thing they have not read.”

“Then I must write them one.” He said it with such evid­ent en­joy­ment that she took it for a joke, until he went on. “I mean to, you know. I have come to town to write on the lib­eral side of the ques­tion, for who­ever will pay me. It ap­pears to be the only plan I have left. Do you write, ma’am?”

“I count,” said Clem­ency; which was true, and was the most that she had ever said.

“Then you read.”

“Everything that comes into the house. My brother brings it. It is my busi­ness to be right about it.”

“And what are you right about?”

“That there is a sen­tence in each. Gen­er­ally one. The rest is what the gen­tle­man was paid for.”

He laughed. It was not the laugh he had given the sum; it was a longer one, with his head back, and it made the

whole shop look up, and she was sur­prised to find that she had done it, and more sur­prised that she did not mind. “One a num­ber! If it is only one a num­ber, I should be in the Row by Christ­mas.”

“To the tenth of every month.”

“The tenth of what?”

“Of every month. It is when a num­ber is due.”

“Ah.” He looked, for the first time, a little less pleased. “That is where I should fail. I have al­ways held that if a thing does not come like the leaves to a tree, it had bet­ter not come at all.”

“No tree,” said Clem­ency, “was ever asked for its leaves by the tenth.”

“And if it were?”

“It would send what it had,” said Clem­ency, “and call it the sea­son.”

He stood quite still. He was a man who moved a great deal, even stand­ing, and she had not known it until he stopped; and the roll of pa­pers went down on the counter with­out his seem­ing to have put it there.

“Say that again.”

“I should send what I had, and call it the sea­son. In Oc­to­ber it would be suf­fi­cient, I think. There would not be a great deal.”

“You have paid me,” he said slowly, “and I have not a shil­ling on me that is not some­body’s already. I can only pay you in what I have.” He took a pen­cil out of the shop’s tray, and tore the mar­gin off the sheet of brown paper that the book had come in, and wrote on it where he stood, with the paper flat against the counter, quickly and with­out once look­ing up. It was the way a man writes out an ad­dress; and she understood that it was not being made, but copied, and that it had been in his head, fin­ished, for some while. “It is not prin­ted. It will be, I dare say, in the sum­mer, if the house can be brought to think it a poem. I was in the coun­try last month, and walked out on a Sunday, and found that a stubble plain looks warm, as some pic­tures look warm; and I came home and could not leave off say­ing so. That is the be­gin­ning. You are wel­come to the be­gin­ning. It costs noth­ing to keep.”

She took it. It was a strip of brown paper with a grease-spot at one end, and four lines in a quick hand that leaned a little for­ward, as if it were walk­ing:

She read them as she read prices, twice. The first time they were beau­ti­ful, and she had been pre­pared for that; she had been pre­pared for it by the face. The second time she did what she al­ways did, which was to look for the

sen­tence, and found that there was one word in it that she could have put into her hand, and that it was not the one that any­body would have given her.

“Con­spir­ing,” said Clem­ency.

“I beg your par­don?”

“The sun and the vines. You have made them to be in it to­gether.”

He looked at her for the space of a breath, with the whole of his at­ten­tion, as he had looked at the sum; and then he laughed again, and it was a third laugh, un­like either of the oth­ers, quick and as­ton­ished, like a man who has put his hand into his pocket and found a coin there from an­other year. “Every­one I have shown it to,” he said, “looks at mel­low.”

“Any­body can look at mel­low.”

The shop­man came back with the pamph­let. The young man took up his roll of pa­pers and put it into the shop­man’s hands, and said that it was for the house, and that the house was to be told that the rest was com­ing; and then he bowed to Clem­ency, with the odd small form­al­ity of a per­son who is not cer­tain that he is en­titled to it and does it any­how, and went to the door. There he stopped, and for a mo­ment she saw him in pro­file against the street, not look­ing at the street at all but at some­thing a good deal farther off, and pleas­anter; and she knew the look. It was the look of a per­son who has been at­tend­ing to a stranger out of pure good nature and has a let­ter to write. He had one.

Then he was gone, at a pace that his height would not have led her to ex­pect, and the street shut over him.

She went home by the way she al­ways went, with Mr. Pel­ham’s book under one arm and the brown paper in her glove, and Guild­hall going on all about her as it had be­fore. It was Oc­to­ber. It had been Oc­to­ber, she sup­posed, for some time, in Fleet Street, and she had been walk­ing through it for six-and-twenty years with­out once being told so.

It was not far. Noth­ing in Fleet Street was far from any­thing else; and she had the whole case ar­gued, and had lost it twice, be­fore she came to her own door.

She had told him ten guineas. That was the first thing. She had told one per­son in Lon­don what the Row would give the Author of the Mor­timers, and it was a young man with­out a shil­ling of his own, who had be­lieved her, and who did not know that he had been told it by the Author; and she did not mind this as much as she ought. Ten guineas a num­ber was a hun­dred and twenty-six pounds a year. It was a door of their own, with a knocker on it and no law-sta­tioner under it; it was col­ours, and candles to paint by; it was Lucy’s straw hat on the fire and a bon­net bought that de­served the rib­bon. And

the price of it was a name, which the Row would print on the wrap­per, and the name was Lyd­iard, and the Row had dined a Man­chester man of forty and liked him very well. She would not open the let­ter. To open it was to an­swer it, and she could not an­swer it as a man.

Then there was Kit. She would tell Kit that the book had come, and the pamph­let was over, and the shil­ling paid, and the shop­man six­pence out, which Kit would like, be­cause he liked any­thing that showed a trades­man to be fal­lible. She would not tell him the rest. Kit would ask what the fel­low looked like, and she had dis­covered at the counter that she could not say to any pur­pose; and he would ask what was on the paper, and she would have to show it him, and he would say it was very pretty, and carry it off to Mr. Pel­ham to be dis­puted with. She was not going to have it dis­puted with. Her mother would ask only whether the young man had had his din­ner, which was the one ques­tion about him that Clem­ency could not an­swer either. Lucy would ask whether he was hand­some; and she would say no, which was true, and Lucy would know at once that it was not.

She did not take the lines. That was what she turned over, going up the two pair of stairs. Since August she had taken, and been taken from, and had thought of the whole busi­ness as a kind of war con­duc­ted in the mar­gin; and here at last was a sen­tence she had not had to carry off, which had been put into her hand like a coin, and which weighed, as a given thing does, rather more than a stolen one, be­cause there was noth­ing to be afraid of and nowhere to hide it. She stood in the back room for some time with the paper, look­ing for a drawer. Then she put it in the fus­tian port­fo­lio, in with the lord’s let­ter and the Row’s, among the things that she could not fin­ish; and it was, she no­ticed with some an­noy­ance, the only thing in it that was.

*  *  *  *  *

The proof of the sev­enth num­ber came up the two pair of stairs after sup­per that night, in the hand of Mr. Bal­dock’s boy, with a mes­sage that Mr. Bal­dock would be ob­liged to have it back by the morn­ing, the printer being in a tak­ing; and Clem­ency, who had spent the af­ter­noon being paid in verse, sat up with it in the back room; and the com­pos­itor, it ap­peared, had been in a tak­ing too. He had given the kit­chen-maid four­teen guineas a week, which would have put the house in Mount Street in the Gaz­ette by Lady Day; and in the sen­tence, the one she had stopped for in the middle of a para­graph and let come, he had set the last word wrong, so that the kit­chen-maid knew

the whole of the fash­ion­able world by its books.

She looked at that for some time. It was a very nat­ural mis­take. There were a great many people in Lon­don who knew the fash­ion­able world in no other way, and some of them were paid for it. Then she struck out week and wrote year, and struck out books and wrote boots, in a hand that no printer could mis­take, and went to bed.

She car­ried it back to the Row on the Thursday morn­ing, and found Mr. Bal­dock in his of­fice with a let­ter on the desk in front of him that he was not read­ing, be­cause he had it by heart.

“Four lines,” he said, be­fore she had the proof out of its paper. “I have had longer let­ters about a comma. My land­lord is very sorry. My land­lord sells seal­ing-wax in Cheap­side and has never read a maga­zine in his life, and he has read mine every month since Sep­tem­ber. I told you that I had found my lease an in­struct­ive doc­u­ment. He will be glad of the house at Christ­mas.” He turned the let­ter over, so that it lay on its face.

“At Christ­mas,” said Clem­ency.

“At Christ­mas. So there will be a Lud­gate on the first of No­vem­ber, if Tuck­ett can be brought to print it in my type, and you shall be in it, as I said; and on the first of Decem­ber, if he can be brought again; and after that there will be a Lud­gate on whatever floor in Lon­don will have it, or there will not.” He held out his hand for the proof, and weighed it, and turned the leaves until he came to the mar­gin. “You found the books.”

“I found the books.”

There was a step on the stair, and a long young man came in with­out knock­ing, with his sleeves rolled to the elbow and ink up to where they stopped, and a paper cap in his hand that he had re­membered on the land­ing to take off.

“Gedge, sir, from Mr. Tuck­ett’s. For the sev­enth. Mr. Tuck­ett’s com­pli­ments, and he’s in a tak­ing.”

“I know he is,” said Mr. Bal­dock, and gave him the proof.

Mr. Gedge turned the leaves to the mar­gin, as every­body that morn­ing seemed to do, and looked at boots for some time; and Clem­ency, who had writ­ten it there the night be­fore, looked at the win­dow.

“I set it books,” said Mr. Gedge. “I’m sorry for it, sir. I’m a read­ing man, and a read­ing man sees books where any other would see boots, which is a judg­ment on him.” He fol­ded the proof into his breast, ink and all. “It’s the truest sen­tence I’ve set this year, and I’ve set the Bishop of Lon­don’s charge. You may tell the Author so, from a Meth­od­ist. He’ll not mind it from a Meth­od­ist.”

“I will tell him,” said Mr. Bal­dock; and Mr. Gedge put on his paper cap, and bowed to the lady by the win­dow, and went down.

“Tuck­ett de­plores him,” said Mr. Bal­dock, “be­cause he reads everything he sets. Tuck­ett him­self has sent to ask whether there is to be any­thing in the No­vem­ber num­ber about Guild­hall; be­cause if there is, he says, he would as soon print the Lit­any for the Pope. The first jury is to go out today.”

“And will there be any­thing?”

“If they ac­quit him, there will be no need. If they con­vict him⁠—” He did not fin­ish it. He had begun to listen, with his head a little on one side, to the shop below, where a voice was ask­ing for Mr. Bal­dock.

It was a large voice, and a pleased one: the voice of a man who has been told in his own county that he has a fine voice, and has not since been any­where that would tell him oth­er­wise. Clem­ency knew it be­fore it had reached the foot of the stairs. She had last heard it across a leg of roast mut­ton in Bread Street when she was four­teen, talk­ing about looms; it had talked about looms for an hour and a half, while her father, who did not care to be told about looms by the son of a man who owed him money, carved.

“Some­body about the Mor­timers,” said Mr. Bal­dock, who had heard the word through the floor. He looked at her, and then at the door of the little room be­hind the of­fice, where he kept his files and his um­brella and the proofs that were wait­ing for some­body. “Miss Lyd­iard, would you ob­lige me by going in there and read­ing some­thing?”

She went in there. The door did not shut; it had not shut in thirty years, Mr. Bal­dock said, and he had grown fond of it; and she sat down on a box of back num­bers, with noth­ing to read, and heard young Mr. Hind­ley come up the stairs.

“Mr. Bal­dock? Hind­ley. Hind­ley and Son, of Man­chester.” A card was laid on the desk with some force. “I’ll not keep you. I’ve come about the Mor­timers.”

“Have you,” said Mr. Bal­dock.

“I have. I’ve been din­ing with Bald­win’s people: at the Chapter, Tues­day was a week, and again last night. Very civil, very good wine, and the gen­tle­man that’s to edit it, who talked well and listened bet­ter. They’ve a maga­zine com­ing out in Janu­ary, and they’ve a fancy for the Mor­timers, and they’ve a fancy that I’m the man to speak to.”

“And are you?”

“I’ve not said I’m not.” Mr. Hind­ley said it with deep con­tent, as a man lays down a good card. “I’m a plain man, Mr. Bal­dock. I’ve been in trade since I was twelve years old, and I never yet told a buyer what I’d got in the

ware­house. I let him tell me what he wants, and then I gen­er­ally find I’ve got it. They want a Man­chester man that knows the trade and has a pen. They’ve found a Man­chester man that knows the trade, and I’ll not be so un­civil as to tell them they’re wrong.”

“Nor shall I,” said Mr. Bal­dock.

There was a pause. Clem­ency, on her box, was hold­ing her breath.

“They talk of ten guineas,” said Mr. Hind­ley. “What do you give?”

“I give the Author seven.”

“Then the Author’s a fool, and I’m not. Twelve.”

The door of the little room, which did not shut, chose this mo­ment to come open by three inches. Clem­ency put out her foot and drew it to again by the toe of her boot; and Mr. Bal­dock, who could see the door, and whom Mr. Hind­ley could see, looked with great at­ten­tion at the ceil­ing.

There was an­other pause, a longer one, in which Clem­ency heard her­self put up for sale by a man who had not got her to a man who already had; and found, which sur­prised her more than any­thing else that morn­ing, that she wanted very much to know what she would fetch.

“Twelve,” said Mr. Bal­dock. “Done. On de­liv­ery: a sheet and a half, fair copy, in this of­fice by the tenth of No­vem­ber.”

“You’ll have it.”

“I shall be very glad to have it. I never pay on ac­count. The Author will have told you so.”

“He has,” said Mr. Hind­ley, with­out a blink; and Clem­ency, who had told nobody so, and had never had the least oc­ca­sion to, put her hand over her mouth.

“And there is a lord,” said Mr. Bal­dock, “in Gros­venor Square, who has asked to be al­lowed to be the Author’s host. I sent his let­ter on. You will not have had it.”

“I’ve not.”

“Lord Ash­combe. The north side. He reads very little and ad­mires everything, and he col­lects au­thors.”

“I’ll call,” said Mr. Hind­ley, and Clem­ency could hear him writ­ing it down. “I’m a plain man, and I’m al­ways glad to call on a lord. They pay slow­est of any­body, but they order the most.” He took up his card again, which he seemed to think he had lent and not given, and put it back in his pocket. “Grand place for a lit­er­ary man, Lon­don.”

“It is the only place,” said Mr. Bal­dock.

When the shop door had shut on him Mr. Bal­dock opened the door of the little room, which came open, as it did not shut, with no trouble at all.

“You heard,” he said.

“I heard.”

“You know him.”

“His father,” said Clem­ency, “owes my mother four hun­dred pounds. Papa lent it him in a bad year, and it has been a bad year in Man­chester ever since.” She said it in the voice in which she would have given the price of coals, and it did not come out in that voice; her hands were not steady, and she was an­grier than she had ever been in her life with any­body but her­self. She had ad­mired him a week ago, when he was a tall man with a Lan­ca­shire voice and no name. It was an­other thing to have the name, and the name owing her mother money. “He came to Bread Street once. He talked about looms.”

“He talks very well about calico,” said Mr. Bal­dock. “He did not talk to me about it, but I could hear that he would.” He sat down be­hind his desk, and put the tips of his fin­gers to­gether, and looked at them. “Well. I have just agreed to pay twelve guineas for the eighth num­ber of the Mor­timers, to the Author, on de­liv­ery, by the tenth of No­vem­ber; and I am a man of my word, Miss Lyd­iard, as any­body in the Row will tell you who has tried to make me break it. I do not know who will de­liver it.” He opened his drawer and looked into it, as though the Author might be kept there. “I have an opin­ion.”

“You can­not af­ford twelve guineas.”

“I can­not af­ford a great many things. I was told this morn­ing that I could not af­ford my house.” He shut the drawer. “And I would give twenty to be at Lord Ash­combe’s table when his lord­ship asks Mr. Hind­ley what made him take away Mr. Mor­timer’s foot­man.”

*  *  *  *  *

It may as well be said here, since neither of them was to learn it for some time, that the rail­ings Mr. Kin­ross had stood and looked at in the dark were the rail­ings at which the Author of the Mor­timers had stood by day­light a week be­fore, being asked whether she could scour; and that of all the people in Lon­don who were that au­tumn won­der­ing who had writ­ten what, the two who wondered hard­est had come nearest to find­ing out, and did not know it.

On the Sat­urday, hav­ing been told by Fen­wick where his rail­ings were, Mr. Kin­ross asked him what his foot­men were called.

He asked it at break­fast, when they were both in the room, be­cause he had found on the Thursday that a ques­tion put across the Chron­icle in the tone of an in­quiry about the weather was the only kind that Fen­wick could not see com­ing.

“James, sir,” said Fen­wick, “and John.”

“Which is which?”

Fen­wick in­dic­ated them, the elder by the side­board and the younger by the door, with the slight move­ment

of the hand by which he in­dic­ated everything in that house, from the claret to the hour. “John, sir. And James.”

Mr. Kin­ross looked at the foot­man by the side­board, who was a tall young man with a high col­our and the face of some­body who has been called by the wrong name for some time and has made his ar­range­ments.

“Is that your name?”

There fell on the small din­ing-room a si­lence of a qual­ity that Mr. Kin­ross had not heard in it be­fore. The foot­man looked at Fen­wick; Fen­wick looked at the cof­fee-pot; and the foot­man, find­ing no help in either, said: “No, sir. I’m James, sir. He’s John.”

It came out. In the old lord’s time the first foot­man had been John and the second James, whatever they had been christened, be­cause the old lord had kept a great many foot­men and no memory. The present first foot­man had been en­gaged be­fore the present second, and had in con­sequence been John for six years, though his name was James; the present second, com­ing after, had been James, though his name was John; each had answered to the other’s name for so long that he no longer turned round for his own; and Mrs. Pratt, below, called them James and John with such force and reg­u­lar­ity that it had never oc­curred to any­body to in­quire.

“Then you will be called by your own names,” said Mr. Kin­ross, “from today.”

“Very good, sir,” said Fen­wick.

It was the first order Mr. Kin­ross had given in that house, in the sense of an order that had not been given for him; and he watched it, over the next three days, being po­litely not car­ried out.

He heard the be­gin­ning of it on the Sat­urday af­ter­noon, from the lib­rary, with the door open. Mrs. Pratt’s voice came up the kit­chen stairs as it came up them every af­ter­noon, with­out the least re­gard for any­thing that had been said at break­fast.

“James!”

Both foot­men went down. Mr. Kin­ross, who had come out on to the land­ing, heard them ar­rive at the foot of the stairs to­gether, and then a si­lence.

“I said James,” said Mrs. Pratt.

“I’m James, Mrs. Pratt,” said one foot­man. “By the mas­ter’s order.”

“So was I,” said the other, “till this morn­ing.”

“I don’t want your names,” said Mrs. Pratt. “I want the coals.” There was a fur­ther si­lence, in which Mr. Kin­ross understood that she was look­ing from one of them to the other as she would have looked at two sauce­pans, to see which was going to boil over. “The one,” she said at last, with great dis­tinct­ness, “that car­ries them.”

Neither moved. Under the old lord’s ar­range­ment the coals had been James’s; under the mas­ter’s, James was the other man; and it ap­peared to both foot­men, from the way they stood, that a man who took up the scuttle at that mo­ment would be de­cid­ing a point of law. Mr. Kin­ross, who had made the law, went quietly back into the lib­rary be­fore any­body could ap­peal to him.

Fen­wick, in the hall on the Sunday, said “John⁠—” and stopped, with an ex­pres­sion of great suf­fer­ing, and said “James,” and was wrong. The foot­men them­selves, sent for by their own names, came a little late and a little doubt­ful; and by the Tues­day the house had quietly, with­out a word said by any­body, gone back to the old lord’s ar­range­ment, be­cause it was the only one under which any­body could tell which foot­man was which.

Mr. Kin­ross ob­served it, and said noth­ing. He had wanted, for once in his life, to call a thing by its right name, and had found that in his own house the right name was the one by which nobody could tell what he meant. It struck him, cross­ing the hall on the Tues­day even­ing, as the best joke that had been made against him in two-and-thirty years, and the only one he had made him­self; and he laughed, alone, on the stairs, so that the foot­man by the door, who was John and was called James, looked up.

“James,” said Mr. Kin­ross, who had gone over with the rest of the house.

“Sir?”

“Where do you come from?”

“Ar­doch, sir.” The foot­man col­oured. “My father has the Mains, sir. Under you.”

Mr. Kin­ross, who had not known that he em­ployed in his own hall the son of his own ten­ant, and had passed him there twice a day for three years, stood for a mo­ment on the stair.

“Then you will know,” he said, “that there are no rail­ings at Ar­doch.”

“No, sir. There’s the dyke.”

“Then you have the ad­vant­age of me, James,” said Mr. Kin­ross. “You have al­ways known where it was.”

*  *  *  *  *

Mrs. Lyd­iard came home from Bread Street on the Tues­day with a cold, a pound of sprats, and news, and gave them out in that order.

The news was that young Mr. Hind­ley was in town. He had called on Mr. Po­cock about the ac­count, which Mr. Po­cock had been see­ing about every Tues­day for two years, and had told him that the house would be in funds by Christ­mas, from a lit­er­ary prop­erty.

“A what?” said Kit.

“A lit­er­ary prop­erty. Mr. Po­cock asked him what it was, and he said it was a thing in the maga­zines; and Mr. Po­cock, who reads noth­ing but the Gaz­ette, said that he was very glad

to hear it, and wrote it down.” Mrs. Lyd­iard ap­plied her handker­chief. “His father was to be in funds by Christ­mas from a mill at Bolton, and the Christ­mas after from a cargo at Liver­pool, and the Christ­mas after that from Provid­ence. I don’t know that a maga­zine is any worse.”

Clem­ency, who was the lit­er­ary prop­erty, went on cut­ting the bread-and-but­ter.

“Does he write?” said Lucy, who was wear­ing the blue rib­bon: not on the straw hat, which did not de­serve it, but in her hair, which did.

“He never wrote to us,” said Mrs. Lyd­iard.

Lucy had worn the rib­bon to St. Bride’s on the Sunday, and had thanked Kit for it on the steps, and Kit had re­ceived her thanks with the mod­est air of a man who buys rib­bons by the gross and does not like to be thanked for every one. Clem­ency had said noth­ing, then or since.

On the Wed­nes­day morn­ing there was a cake of car­mine on her desk.

It lay in the back room, in a paper from Acker­mann’s in the Strand, where her mother never went, on top of the eighth num­ber, which was three pages long and going badly: a cake of car­mine, which is the col­our that faces are made of, and costs more than al­most any­thing in the box, be­cause it is made from an in­sect that lives on a cac­tus in Mex­ico and will not be hur­ried. It would have gone into a retic­ule, she saw, in the room of a yard and a half of rib­bon pre­cisely. Nobody had said any­thing about it at break­fast. Lucy had said that the bread was stale, and Kit had said that Pel­ham said Car­lile would get two years at the least, and her mother had poured out the tea, with her cold, and had said noth­ing at all.

Clem­ency did not ask. She stood with it in her hand for about as long as it takes to read a sen­tence twice; and then she put on her bon­net, and went down the two pair of stairs and out into Salis­bury Square, where at nine in the morn­ing there was nobody but a man with a bar­row and the spar­rows, and cried.

It was one of the things she did not do. She found that she did it very badly, from want of prac­tice, and that it took no time at all; and the man with the bar­row, who had seen most things in Salis­bury Square, looked at her once and then very care­fully at his bar­row, which was the most del­ic­ate at­ten­tion she had re­ceived in Lon­don that month, the car­mine ex­cep­ted. Then she went back up the stairs, and went on with the eighth num­ber, which was due on the tenth at twelve guineas, and did not paint any­thing, be­cause she did not yet know what the face was to be.

*  *  *  *  *

Mr. Rad­cliffe brought the No­vem­ber proofs to the Temple him­self on the Wed­nes­day, which he had not done since Lady Day, and climbed the stairs at King’s Bench Walk with the air of a man who does not climb stairs for other people and has de­cided to make an ex­cep­tion that will be entered some­where.

“There is a let­ter in the cor­res­pond­ents’ column,” he said, “that I thought the prin­cipal pro­pri­etor should see be­fore the town does. It is from Lord Ash­combe.”

Mr. Kin­ross knew it be­fore he had it in his hand. He had heard it at Lord Ash­combe’s table, over the mut­ton, read aloud by Mr. Til­lot­son, his lord­ship’s chap­lain, from a copy in a large hand that went up­hill. It had gone in the first place to Mr. Bal­dock, Mr. Rad­cliffe ex­plained, who had de­clined to print it, which his lord­ship had taken as a Whig dis­cour­tesy; and then to the Albe­marle, which his lord­ship took as a Tory duty. It said, at greater length and with the ad­di­tion of a para­graph upon Richard­son, that the rail­ings in the fourth num­ber of the Mor­timers were set ex­actly where rail­ings were set in Gros­venor Square, which was at the kerb, as any res­id­ent could testify; and that Mr. Wray, who had said oth­er­wise, was a puppy.

“I have prin­ted puppy with a dash,” said Mr. Rad­cliffe. “His lord­ship will read the dash as a cour­tesy and Mr. Wray as an in­sult, and they will both be right. Mr. Wray’s an­swer is on the next leaf.”

Mr. Wray’s an­swer was four lines, and all four were true. Mr. Wray begged leave to in­form his lord­ship that the rail­ings in Gros­venor Square were where they had al­ways been, which was along the area; and that his lord­ship might sat­isfy him­self of it at any hour he pleased, by get­ting out of his car­riage.

Mr. Kin­ross read it through a second time. It was very good. It was the best thing Wray had writ­ten: it was short, which Wray’s things never were, and it was cruel, which they al­ways were, and it was ex­actly what Mr. Kin­ross would have writ­ten him­self a month ago, on a bench in the garden, with a pen­cil. He could see the town read­ing it. He could see Lord Ash­combe hav­ing it read to him, by Til­lot­son, on a Tues­day, and laugh­ing, be­cause he would sup­pose for the first half of it that it was about some­body else.

“Strike it,” he said.

Mr. Rad­cliffe did not move. “It is true.”

“It is true. Strike it.”

“You do not com­monly strike out what is true.”

“I have begun,” said Mr. Kin­ross. “Print his lord­ship. A cor­res­pond­ent is en­titled to be wrong in his own name; it is what the column is for.”

“His lord­ship is wrong, then.”

“His lord­ship is wrong.”

“You are cer­tain.”

“I have looked,” said Mr. Kin­ross.

Mr. Rad­cliffe took back the proof, and drew his pen through Mr. Wray, and made the mark in the mar­gin which meant that the column would come out a quarter short and some­thing must be found to fill it, and wrote be­side it, in his small com­mer­cial hand, To Even­ing: a son­net; for the Albe­marle kept a drawer of son­nets for the pur­pose, as a joiner keeps wedges. Then he stood a mo­ment longer than he need have done.

“I am to dine with Bald­win’s people on Fri­day,” he said. “At the Chapter. They are mak­ing a maga­zine for Janu­ary, and they want a man who knows the trade.”

“And do you?”

“I know what every­body in it is paid.” He put the proof under his arm. “I have ac­cep­ted the din­ner. I have not ac­cep­ted any­thing else.”

He went down the stairs; and on the way down, as he put away everything, he put away the cir­cum­stance that the prin­cipal pro­pri­etor of the Albe­marle had lately been look­ing at rail­ings.

*  *  *  *  *

Lady Ar­doch’s let­ter came on the Sat­urday, crossed and re­crossed. She had had a let­ter from Lord Ash­combe, who wrote to every­body, and was at present writ­ing chiefly about build­ers, to say that he had dined Alex­an­der with the Author of that long thing in the Albe­marle: a Mr. Dal­gleish, a Perth man, very re­spect­able, with four sis­ters, who denied it. Lady Ar­doch was more re­lieved than she could say, and said so for a side and a half. She had been in a per­fect fid­get all the sum­mer, she would not con­ceal it; for she had got it into her head, from his being al­ways at the Temple and never at his law­yers’, and from some­thing in that maga­zine about the Marches which had put her in mind of his grand­father, that it was the book after all, and that Alex­an­der was writ­ing for the maga­zines, which his uncle would never have borne. She now saw that it had been all nerves and non­sense, and begged his par­don; and Miss Lau­der’s com­plex­ion was very much im­proved by the air.

Mr. Kin­ross read it at break­fast, and did not put it under the toast-rack. He took it up to the lib­rary af­ter­wards and answered it, which he had not done to a let­ter of his aunt’s in a dozen years; and Fen­wick, car­ry­ing the an­swer to the post, held it a mo­ment in the hall, as a man holds a thing he has not seen be­fore and sus­pects of being a for­gery.

It said:

*  *  *  *  *

On the first of No­vem­ber Mr. Kin­ross was in Albe­marle Street by eight, which was an hour after Mr. Rad­cliffe had sat down with his own num­ber and two be­fore the town could have done; and he found the Lud­gate lying by it­self on the corner of the table nearest the door, where nobody ever put a maga­zine but Mr. Rad­cliffe, and Mr. Rad­cliffe only when there was some­thing in it.

“The Author has moved his rail­ings,” said Mr. Rad­cliffe.

Mr. Kin­ross sat down with it. The sev­enth num­ber of the Mor­timers was the kit­chen-maid’s: a girl of fif­teen, newly come from a regis­ter-of­fice, at the foot of the area steps in Mount Street, look­ing up. When Mrs. Mor­timer’s car­riage came, in the middle of it, it drew up where car­riages drew up in that Square, at the step, with the rail­ings be­hind it along the area and the kit­chen-maid under them; and the num­ber went on with­out a word, as though the rail­ings had never stood any­where else. Beside it on the table lay the Albe­marle, open at the cor­res­pond­ents’ column, where his lord­ship stood at the kerb for a page and a half, with Mr. Wray struck out from under him and a son­net in his place.

So the Author had answered his lord­ship him­self, on the same morn­ing, in the other maga­zine, by mend­ing the very thing his lord­ship had spent a page and a half de­fend­ing; and Mr. Kin­ross, who had struck out Wray to spare a kind man the truth from a puppy, had spared him the puppy and handed him to the Author. It was very likely that his lord­ship would never no­tice, since Til­lot­son read him the Lud­gate on Tues­days and passed over the parts about kit­chens. Mr. Kin­ross saw that this was not the point.

Then he came to the sen­tence. He read that the fam­ily in Mount Street had been set down at their own door so many times that not one of them could have said within a yard where the rail­ings stood; and that the kit­chen-maid, at four­teen guineas a year, spent her days below them, with noth­ing else to look at, and knew the whole of the fash­ion­able world by its boots. He had been set down at his own door for el­even years. He had stood on his own pave­ment, not three weeks ago, in the dark, for the first time in his life, and looked; and he had asked Fen­wick in the morn­ing, and Fen­wick had

understood it to be gen­er­ally known. He read the sen­tence again. It did not seem to him to be about Lord Ash­combe at all.

“It is very good,” said Mr. Rad­cliffe, who had watched him read it, as he watched everything, for its price.

Mr. Kin­ross walked home to break­fast. He asked Fen­wick, across the Chron­icle, what the kit­chen-maid’s place in that house was worth; and Fen­wick, who had stopped look­ing sur­prised at any­thing his mas­ter asked and had begun in­stead to look pre­pared, said four­teen guineas, sir, and her tea and sugar, and that the place was not yet filled.

After break­fast Mr. Kin­ross went to the Temple, and took out of his drawer the slip on which he had writ­ten a house­keeper’s son, with Oxford quer­ied under it and pos­sibly a woman struck through; and he looked at it for some time. The Author knew, then, to the guinea, what was paid below stairs in Gros­venor Square. Mr. Kin­ross un­der­lined the first line twice, and put the slip back, and was more pleased with it than ever, which is the usual ef­fect of evid­ence upon a the­ory.

*  *  *  *  *

Clem­ency went up to the Row at noon, as she did on the first of every month, to look at her own num­ber in Bal­dock’s win­dow with­out buy­ing it; and it was there.

She had not known, until she saw it, how little she had ex­pec­ted it to be. The ver­dicts had come down Fleet Street more than a fort­night be­fore; Tuck­ett, Kit said, had sent his com­pli­ments to Mr. Bal­dock on the six­teenth and his re­grets on the eight­eenth, and the Row had it that there would be no Lud­gate for No­vem­ber; and since then she had heard noth­ing, be­cause Mr. Bal­dock had sent noth­ing, which was his way of say­ing that there was noth­ing yet to send. Now the Lud­gate lay in the win­dow in its blue-grey wrap­per, be­tween the ser­mons and the dry rot, as though it had never been in any doubt, with the con­tents prin­ted down the front in the small plain Whig type: The Mor­timers of Mount Street. No. VII. And set in above the Mor­timers, in the same small type that Man­chester had had in Sep­tem­ber, was a page headed Guild­hall.

Some­body had brought Tuck­ett to it. Mr. Bal­dock, she sup­posed; and she did not ask her­self what it had taken. She looked at the win­dow for the proper length of time, which was the length of time a stranger might give it, and then for a little longer, which a stranger would not; and the win­dow of the of­fice above did not go up, and nobody called her in, and she went home by Lud­gate Hill with noth­ing under her arm, and did not want any­thing there.

Kit came home at six with the Albe­marle, which Mr. Pel­ham had sent with his com­pli­ments be­cause there was a lord in it, and with news.

“They have found him,” said Kit, be­fore he had his coat off. “The Mor­timers. Not the Warden; the other. Pel­ham had it at Dick’s, and Grice had it at the Chapter, and Lord Ash­combe has had him to call, and he’s to dine there be­fore Christ­mas with Dal­gleish, the two of them at one table. It’s a Man­chester man, which Pel­ham says is only the City fur­ther off, so that he was right all along: the first reason and the second and the sev­enth. A Mr. Hind­ley.”

“I know a Mr. Hind­ley,” said Mrs. Lyd­iard.

“Ma!”

“The one who owes us?” said Lucy.

“The son of the one who owes us.” Mrs. Lyd­iard took up the cuff she was mend­ing. “Your father had him to din­ner. He talked about looms.”

“Then you’ve had the Author of the Mor­timers to roast mut­ton!” Kit sat down to the fire in a kind of ec­stasy. “In Bread Street! Lord, Ma, why did you never say?”

“I told you a fort­night ago that he had a lit­er­ary prop­erty,” said Mrs. Lyd­iard. “Nobody listened. I have never in my life known a Hind­ley write any­thing but his name at the foot of a bill, and that badly.”

Clem­ency laid the cloth. She laid it very ex­actly, and said noth­ing; and Kit, who had the floor and did not mean to give it up, opened the Albe­marle at the cor­res­pond­ents’ column and gave them his lord­ship’s let­ter from the be­gin­ning, with the ex­pres­sion. Clem­ency, who had the ori­ginal in the fus­tian port­fo­lio under her bed, be­tween Mr. Mor­timer with­out a face and a car­riage that still drew up at the kerb, heard it read aloud for the first time: the first writer since Richard­son who had understood the Square, the rail­ings ex­actly where rail­ings were set, at the kerb, as any res­id­ent could testify, and Mr. Wray a p, dash, y.

“And Wray’s not answered him,” said Kit. “Pel­ham says it’s the first time in his life Wray has let any­body have the last word.” He turned the page, de­lighted with every­body. “And here’s the best of it. Pel­ham had the Lud­gate at Dick’s as well, to see what the fel­low would say; and the fel­low’s moved his rail­ings! This month! His lord­ship stands up for him at the kerb, and he goes and puts them in the area, under Wray’s nose, on the same morn­ing. He’s lost his nerve. Wray’s frightened him.”

“He has not lost his nerve,” said Clem­ency.

It came out louder than she had meant, and the table looked at her; and she could not stop.

“He has not lost his nerve, and nobody has frightened him. He went and looked. He has put in the coal-plate, and the boots, and the kit­chen-maid’s wages to the guinea, and nobody puts in a coal-plate who has not stood under one. He was wrong, and he went and looked, which is more than Mr. Wray has ever done or his lord­ship ever will; and he has put it right in his own num­ber, with­out a word about it to either of them; and if you call that los­ing his nerve, Kit, you may⁠—you may⁠—”

She did not know what he might. She had never in her life been angry aloud at that table, and she had no end­ing ready.

There was a si­lence.

“Well,” said Kit, after a mo­ment, with real re­spect, “you’d make a bet­ter Author than Hind­ley.” He shut the Albe­marle. “I’ll tell Pel­ham. He’ll say it’s the eighth reason.”

Clem­ency laughed. She had not meant to do that either; but she laughed, and Kit laughed, and Lucy, who had not been at­tend­ing, laughed be­cause they had, and said that he had put the rail­ings where she fell down, which was only right; and it was the first time in a month that Clem­ency had laughed at that table with­out pay­ing for it. Mrs. Lyd­iard, who did not laugh, ob­served that old Mr. Hind­ley had never in his life stood under any­thing he could avoid, and asked Lucy for the salt.

They went to bed at el­even. Kit left the Albe­marle on the table, open at his lord­ship, as he left everything; and Clem­ency took it, and a candle, through to the back room, and sat down to the Warden.

The twelfth num­ber took up the Warden at Lud­low, where the el­ev­enth had left him, on the morn­ing after the feast; and it was a cold num­ber, and a long one, and she read it as she now read the Warden, sit­ting down, with her whole at­ten­tion, look­ing for the sen­tence. She found it two-thirds of the way through, and did not know it at first, be­cause it had been turned round and was look­ing at her from the other side:

She read it twice. It was the clause she had put at the end of Mr. Mor­timer’s sen­tence in Sep­tem­ber, the only part of it that had not been his:

that the peace of a house was not to be men­ded, at any charge whatever, by the man who had broken it. He had taken it, as she had taken his foot­man and his peace. He had not quar­relled with it. He had only gone on past the end of it, to a place where she had not thought to go, and found some­body stand­ing there.

For noth­ing at all. It was not true. Noth­ing was men­ded for noth­ing. She knew what it cost to turn a gown, and what a strip of brown paper cost a man who had not a shil­ling that was not some­body’s already, and what it cost to stand at the foot of el­even steps in Gros­venor Square and be asked whether one could scour. She knew the price of everything that had been men­ded in that house since Bread Street, and who had paid it; and the car­mine lay on the desk in front of her, in its paper, where her mother had put it, and nobody had said a word.

She sat with her hand on it until the candle was down. She was very angry with him. It took her the rest of the candle to dis­cover that it was be­cause he was right; and there was nobody in Lon­don to whom she could say so, which was the only part of it that she could not forgive.

(To be con­tin­ued.)