I had drawn a step back from him, or I should have suffered from his
buttons again.

"Sir, I assure you, I have been already well paid, and--"

"No, no, Christopher! Don't talk like that! What sum of money would be
acceptable to you, Christopher? Would you find twenty pounds acceptable,
Christopher?"

However great my surprise, I naturally found words to say, "Sir, I am not
aware that the man was ever yet born without more than the average amount
of water on the brain as would not find twenty pounds acceptable.
But--extremely obliged to you, sir, I'm sure;" for he had tumbled it out
of his purse and crammed it in my hand in two bank-notes; "but I could
wish to know, sir, if not intruding, how I have merited this liberality?"

"Know then, my Christopher," he says, "that from boyhood's hour I have
unremittingly and unavailingly endeavoured to get into print. Know,
Christopher, that all the Booksellers alive--and several dead--have
refused to put me into print. Know, Christopher, that I have written
unprinted Reams. But they shall be read to you, my friend and brother.
You sometimes have a holiday?"

Seeing the great danger I was in, I had the presence of mind to answer,
"Never!" To make it more final, I added, "Never! Not from the cradle to
the grave."

"Well," says he, thinking no more about that, and chuckling at his proofs
again. "But I am in print! The first flight of ambition emanating from
my father's lowly cot is realised at length! The golden bow"--he was