his money. That a thing is of little value is a poor excuse for giving
bad measure of it. Walter carried his hod full, and was a man.

Sullivan was mainly employed in writing the reviews of "current
literature." One evening he brought Walter a book of some pretension,
told him he was hard pressed, and begged him to write a notice of it.
Walter, glad of the opportunity of both serving his friend and trying
his own hand, set himself at once to read the book. The moment he thus
took the attitude of a reviewer, he found the paragraphs begin, like
potatoes, to sprout, and generate other paragraphs. Between agreeing and
disagreeing he had soon far more than enough to say, and sought his
table, as a workman his bench.

To many people who think, writing is the greatest of bores; but Walter
enjoyed it, even to the mechanical part of the operation. Heedless of
the length of his article, he wrote until long after midnight, and next
morning handed the result to his friend. He burst out laughing.

"Here's a paper for a quarterly!" he cried. "Man, it is almost as long
as the book itself! This will never do! The world has neither time,
space, money, nor brains for so much! But I will take it, and see what
can be done with it"

About a sixth part of it was printed. In that sixth Walter could not
recognize his hand; neither could he have gathered from it any idea of
the book.

A few days after, Harold brought him a batch of books to review, taking
care, however, to limit him to an average length for each. Walter
entered thus upon a short apprenticeship, the end of which was that, a