been the first interview between the two great novelists. We may presume
that the offer was rejected.

In 1832, Thackeray came of age, and inherited his fortune,--as to which
various stories have been told. It seems to have amounted to about five
hundred a year, and to have passed through his hands in a year or two,
interest and principal. It has been told of him that it was all taken
away from him at cards, but such was not the truth. Some went in an
Indian bank in which he invested it. A portion was lost at cards. But
with some of it,--the larger part as I think,--he endeavoured, in
concert with his stepfather, to float a newspaper, which failed. There
seem to have been two newspapers in which he was so concerned, _The
National Standard_ and _The Constitutional_. On the latter he was
engaged with his stepfather, and in carrying that on he lost the last of
his money. _The National Standard_ had been running for some weeks when
Thackeray joined it, and lost his money in it. It ran only for little
more than twelve months, and then, the money having gone, the periodical
came to an end. I know no road to fortune more tempting to a young man,
or one that with more certainty leads to ruin. Thackeray, who in a way
more or less correct, often refers in his writings, if not to the
incidents, at any rate to the remembrances of his own life, tells us
much of the story of this newspaper in _Lovel the Widower_. "They are
welcome," says the bachelor, "to make merry at my charges in respect of
a certain bargain which I made on coming to London, and in which, had I
been Moses Primrose purchasing green spectacles, I could scarcely have
been more taken in. My Jenkinson was an old college acquaintance, whom I
was idiot enough to imagine a respectable man. The fellow had a very
smooth tongue and sleek sanctified exterior. He was rather a popular
preacher, and used to cry a good deal in the pulpit. He and a queer wine
merchant and bill discounter, Sherrick by name, had somehow got