saying that the editors had the less regret in returning it because they
saw that in the May number of the Knickerbocker the first chapter of the
story had appeared. Then I remembered that, years before, I had sent
this chapter to that magazine, as a sketch to be printed by itself, and
afterwards had continued the story from it. I had never heard of its
acceptance, and supposed of course that it was rejected; but on my second
visit to New York I called at the Knickerbocker office, and a new editor,
of those that the magazine was always having in the days of its failing
fortunes, told me that he had found my sketch in rummaging about in a
barrel of his predecessors manuscripts, and had liked it, and printed
it. He said that there were fifteen dollars coming to me for that
sketch, and might he send the money to me? I said that he might, though
I do not see, to this day, why he did not give it me on the spot; and he
made a very small minute in a very large sheet of paper (really like Dick
Swiveller), and promised I should have it that night; but I sailed the
next day for Liverpool without it. I sailed without the money for some
verses that Vanity Fair bought of me, but I hardly expected that, for the
editor, who was then Artemus Ward, had frankly told me in taking my
address that ducats were few at that moment with Vanity Fair. I was then
on my way to be consul at Venice, where I spent the next four years in a
vigilance for Confederate privateers which none of them ever surprised.
I had asked for the consulate at Munich, where I hoped to steep myself
yet longer in German poetry, but when my appointment came, I found it was
for Rome. I was very glad to get Rome even; but the income of the office
was in fees, and I thought I had better go on to Washington and find out
how much the fees amounted to. People in Columbus who had been abroad
said that on five hundred dollars you could live in Rome like a prince,
but I doubted this; and when I learned at the State Department that the
fees of the Roman consulate came to only three hundred, I perceived that
I could not live better than a baron, probably, and I despaired. The