durst not go. A strange time, I assure you.

When he had completed his twenty-first year, he desired to
procure a reader's ticket for the British Museum. Now this was
not such a simple matter as you may suppose; it was necessary to
obtain the signature of some respectable householder, and Reardon
was acquainted with no such person. His landlady was a decent
woman enough, and a payer of rates and taxes, but it would look
odd, to say the least of it, to present oneself in Great Russell
Street armed with this person's recommendation. There was nothing
for it but to take a bold step, to force himself upon the
attention of a stranger--the thing from which his pride had
always shrunk. He wrote to a well-known novelist--a man with
whose works he had some sympathy. 'I am trying to prepare myself
for a literary career. I wish to study in the Reading-room of the
British Museum, but have no acquaintance to whom I can refer in
the ordinary way. Will you help me--I mean, in this particular
only?' That was the substance of his letter. For reply came an
invitation to a house in the West-end. With fear and trembling
Reardon answered the summons. He was so shabbily attired; he was
so diffident from the habit of living quite alone; he was
horribly afraid lest it should be supposed that he looked for
other assistance than he had requested. Well, the novelist was a
rotund and jovial man; his dwelling and his person smelt of
money; he was so happy himself that he could afford to be kind to
others.

'Have you published anything?' he inquired, for the young man's
letter had left this uncertain.