once again, and enter. The editor is sitting at his table, his face
towards the window, pen in hand, about to write. When he hears my
breathless greeting he turns half round, steals a quick look at me, shakes
his head, and says:

"Oh, I haven't found time to read your sketch yet."

I am so delighted, because in that case he has not rejected it, that I
answer:

"Oh, pray, sir, don't mention it. I quite understand--there is no hurry;
in a few days, perhaps--"

"Yes, I shall see; besides, I have your address."

I forgot to inform him that I no longer had an address, and the interview
is over. I bow myself out, and leave. Hope flames up again in me; as yet,
nothing is lost--on the contrary, I might, for that matter, yet win all.
And my brain began to spin a romance about a great council in Heaven, in
which it had just been resolved that I should win--ay, triumphantly win
ten shillings for a story.

If I only had some place in which to take refuge for the night! I consider
where I can stow myself away, and am so absorbed in this query that I come
to a standstill in the middle of the street. I forget where I am, and pose
like a solitary beacon on a rock in mid-sea, whilst the tides rush and
roar about it.

A newspaper boy offers me _The Viking_.