will buy from me. I am not a Fellow of the R.S.C., and if I produced
anything dreary I could not look for the solace of having that
discerning association clap their hands while I read my manuscript.

As to my subject being blood and thunder, as some of the _litterateurs_
will describe it, I have only to say that the author of _Hard Cash_
wrote more than a dozen short stories laid upon lines similar to mine.
A young man fighting for a place in literature, and for bread and
butter at the same time, need not blush at being censured for adopting
a literary field in which Charles Reade spent so many years of his
life.

By-and-by, when I drive a gilded chariot, and can afford to wait for
books with quieter titles and more dramatic worth to bring me their
slow earnings, I shall be presumptuous enough to set such a star
before my ambition as the masters of English fiction followed.

E. C.

TORONTO, 1st August, 1886.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I.

THE PRETTY ASTER AND MR. HAM