work--" he said, "do not be discouraged. There are many doors. Mine is
only one. Knock at the others. Good luck to you."

I never saw Wemyss Reid again, but he made a friend who never forgot him,
and who mourned his death. It was not that he accepted my stories; it
was that he said what he did say to a young man who did not yet know what
his literary fortune might be. Well, I sent him a short story called,
'An Epic in Yellow'. Proofs came by return of post. This story was
followed by 'The High Court of Budgery-Gar', 'Old Roses', 'My Wife's
Lovers', 'Derelict', 'Dibbs, R.N.', 'A Little Masquerade', and 'The
Stranger's Hut'. Most, if not all, of these appeared before the Pierre
stories were written.

They did not strike the imagination of the public in the same way as the
Pierre series, but they made many friends. They were mostly Australian,
and represented the life which for nearly four years I knew and studied
with that affection which only the young, open-eyed enthusiast, who
makes his first journey in the world, can give. In the same year, for
'Macmillan's Magazine', I wrote 'Barbara Golding' and 'A Pagan of the
South', which was originally published as 'The Woman in the Morgue'.
'A Friend of the Commune' was also published in the 'English Illustrated
Magazine', and 'The Blind Beggar and the Little Red Peg' found a place in
the 'National Observer' after W. E. Henley had ceased to be its editor,
and Mr. J. C. Vincent, also since dead, had taken his place. 'The Lone
Corvette' was published in 'The Westminster Gazette' as late as 1893.

Of certain of these stories, particularly of the Australian group,
I have no doubt. They were lifted out of the life of that continent with
sympathy and care, and most of the incidents were those which had come
under my own observation. I published them at last in book form, because