the first likely-looking bar he came to; but he was half-way between the Griffin and Ludgate Circus before he remembered he was thirsty.

"Hullo, Grierson, my best of piracy experts. So you've come to Fleet Street at last, as I always said you would. Sneddon, let me introduce Mr. Grierson, an old colleague of mine on a short-lived paper in Shanghai. He knows more Chinese pirates than any man I ever met, not to mention gunrunners and opium smugglers; and he's perfectly invaluable to fill a column when the news has run short." The speaker, a man of about Jimmy's own age, with a keen, smooth-shaven face and restless eyes, shook hands heartily, and ordered another round of drinks.

At the sound of his voice, Jimmy's face lit up with genuine pleasure. He had known Douglas Kelly well on the China Coast, when the other was editing a local paper for a starvation wage, and, as Kelly said, he had written him many a column to fill up space with when both copy and advertisements were short. The British and American community, being absorbed in trade, and knowing nothing of literature, and often very little of the English language, as is the way of its kind, had failed to see the genius under the wild and not too temperate exterior, and had frowned on the young editor as a rather scandalous person entirely devoid of commercial instincts; but Jimmy had always stood by him, and when a sudden access of wealth, in the form of a draft for sixty pounds for a series of short stories in an American magazine, had enabled Kelly to say good-bye both to the China Coast and to his creditors, Grierson has regretted him as much, or even more, than had the latter.

"So you've come to Fleet Street, at last," Kelly repeated. "I knew you would. And I suppose you are going to enter into competition with me. I believe you are the one man of whom I am really afraid."

Jimmy laughed. "I only landed to-day, and I wandered down here by chance. As for writing, I have done very little since I saw you off on that tramp steamer. There were two or three acquaintances of yours watching the mail boat next day on the chance of finding you."

"Herbst, I suppose, and the other squarehead from the hotel—what was his name?—oh, Heine, and that uncleanly Greek tailor. They were a dull lot, and I've forgotten them long ago. Tell me about yourself. Where have you been?"

"India, Australia, and the Dago Republics, where I saw the beginning and the end of various presidents. I made a couple of trips on a blockade runner, and went on a hidden treasure hunt. It sounds all right, thrilling and exciting, yet, when I size it up in my own mind, it comes down to a record of fever and disappointment; with a few purple patches which were so good that, somehow, they seem to have come out of another man's book, instead of being my own experiences."

Kelly stared into his glass. "I know," he said very quietly. "I know the game, though I got out of it sooner than you did, being wiser, as I always told you I was. I suppose you know I'm famous?"

Jimmy smiled; long ago, Douglas Kelly had explained to him his theory of self-advertisement, how, once he was strong enough to do so, he intended to go in for a regular system of blatant, unblushing egotism, which would pay equally little regard to the feelings of others and to the recognised canons of veracity. Now, it was evident that he was translating his theory into practice.

"Even in the Dago countries we used to get papers containing articles of yours," Jimmy said. "And I saw a review of one of your books. Did you put some of our old friends of the China Coast into them?"

Douglas Kelly shook his head emphatically. "They weren't even worth satirising. They might take it as flattery if I remembered their very existence.... I've done what I said I would, Grierson. I'm making a thousand a year now." He turned to his companion. "Sneddon, you might go back to the office, and see if there's anything doing. If anyone wants me, say I'm busy"; then when the other had gone, "How are things with you, Jimmy?" he asked bluntly.

Jimmy laughed a little awkwardly. "Well, they shot my last employer, who was also my best friend, out there; and I came home because I thought it might change the luck."

"So you're broke, just as I used to be?"

"No, not exactly. I've got a few pounds left; but I've nothing to do, and I don't know what to turn my hand to—that's all." Jimmy answered, then as Kelly dived into his pocket and produced a cheque book, he flushed quickly, "No, old man. If I want that, I'll come to you; but I don't want it yet. Thanks very much, though."

Kelly shrugged his shoulders. "You're quite a change. It's generally the other way round. Men ask me for money, and I do the refusing." Usually, his expression was hard, almost cynical, but as he looked at Jimmy it softened, and he seemed to grow years younger. He was back again on the China Coast, in the days when success was a thing of the future, and therefore greatly to be prized. "You'll do well, Grierson, you've got it in you, just as I had. And, after all, London is the one place, the only market worth bringing your stuff to."

"I will admit I had thought of writing, but I know how hard it is to get a start, and——" Jimmy began; but Kelly cut him short.

"Rot! It's hard for the ruck, for the ninety and nine, who, after all, ought to find it impossible, not merely hard. But it's different for you and me, Jimmy Grierson, because we're not in the ruck. Of course you'll write, for it's in you, and you would be a fool to try anything else. You won't jump into a job right away; and you'll have to fight as I fought. I started as a sub-editor on three pounds a week, correcting the grammar in the copy of men who were getting five times that amount—but I can get you a start of sorts, right away. Come around now to the Record office, and I'll introduce you to Dodgson, the editor, a perfectly uninspired person, who ought to have been a grocer's assistant and have sung in a chapel choir. But he has the grace to realise his limitations, and take my advice. It will mean two guineas every now and then for a Page Four article—a thousand words, you know."

Jimmy finished off his drink and stood up. He was beginning to understand that, after all, there was an element of sane, cool common sense behind Kelly's blatant self-assertiveness. It might irritate what the other called the "ruck," but it also cowed them, and they got out of his path; moreover, there was always the undeniable fact that the man had genius of no common order. Jimmy had been perfectly sincere when he said he had not come home intending to make his living by his pen. He had thought of doing so, certainly, or rather had longed to do so; but, like most amateurs, he had been deterred by what he had heard of the difficulties, and had put the idea on one side. Now, however, the proposition had come to him in a concrete form, from a man who had succeeded, a man, moreover, who knew his capacity, and was able to judge his prospects of success. After all, it was only part of that game of drift which he had been playing for the last ten years; and the new phase had this advantage—he might be able to make use of what he had learned during the previous stages of his drifting. So he followed Douglas Kelly out into Fleet Street, then down one of the narrow alleys, to the Herald office.

The main entrance to the Record building, that through which the general public enters, when it wishes to pay for advertisements, or consult the files, or order back numbers, has a rather gorgeous swing door and a quite gorgeous door-keeper in uniform with no less than four medal ribbons on