LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1234, 16 February 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

MY HEROINE.

[Argosy,] CHAPTER I.

When the “Argus” failed I felt I must do something extraordinary or perish; there was no other alternative. 1 could not leap from the sinking ship on to some firmer deck. No sentimental idea of devotion to the vessel which boro my fortunes would have deterred me ; but the fact was that the sinking ship when sound had not made itself particularly agreeable to that ephemeral fleet of paper argosies which seeks daily or weekly the Golden Fleece of the largest circulation. The “Argus” had been something of a privateer, not to say a pirate. It dearly loved a shot beneath the water-mark at a passing companion. It boarded and scuttled a new publication on the slightest provocation. It delighted in pointing out the weak spots of the leviathans, and did not spare the cockle-shells. When the “ Times ” tacked more than once in the week it was jubilant. When the “ Telegraph ” took on board its autumnal sea-serpent it laughed lustily. Nothing escaped it, not an inverted e, not a flaw in logic. And consequently it could not be called a popular organ. A man grows to identify himself with the paper he reads. He will smile at first when you tell him his oracle is mendacious orlmeaningless; but he ends by considering that you have called him a fool or a liar, and feels tenderly towards you accordingly. At least I know I was a marked man several menths before “ Argus ” failed. I had aired my title of dramatic critic of the “Argus” in rather too many clubs and theatres It procured me the acquaintance of several clean-shaven gentlemen, and ladies whose complexions would not bear daylight unaided. It afforded me a few opportunities for informing the public that some were “promising,” some “ conscientious artistes,” “ youthful and talented interpreters.” &c. But it did not shed any perceptible lustre on my onward path. Indeed it closed every door through which a man may pass to Pactolus and Parnassus. Not a chum who had not on some occasion been “cut up” in the “Argus,” and reflected forthwith, “Vallance does everything there ; he has either written the article or suggested it.” Not a journal where I was known that had not been criticised, or worse, worsted, by the bellicose publication with which I was identified. I was the critic of the “Argus.” I bore the brand of Cain.

I realised all this with a feeling of some discomfort on the dull autumn morning when, with the last cheque from the baneful organ in my pocket, I left Fleet street, and turned westward to the club to dine. Only dinner, the diurnal consolatrix afflictorum, could relieve mo ; so I had resolved to order it early. Besides, they would know all about the catastrophe at the club, and their lamentations might take a painfully satirical form if I waited for the general dinner-hour. I went through a carefully composed menu with perfect calm. I took coffee in the smoking-room, and, the sedative manilla aiding, contemplated the future with tolerable placidity. Nothing on the “ Zero;” we chaffed their chief proprietor when he was elected for St. Swithiu’s—good joke, that, about “it never rains.” Ferrara might do something on the “ Century but he owes money to Sidcumb, and I rather think we pricked Sidcumb’s bubble company to death. The “ Pavilion ” —closed ever since I said that Mademoiselle Maohine talked like a drum and danced like a stick. The “Hedgehog”—Lord Courleroy holds it in his hand, and we said he imitated Vance. The “ Trumpeter ” —they would eat me if I applied to them. When an editor has a wife who writes, shun the ill-bred organ that laughs at her. The “ Piccadilly Post ” —no, it’s no use. There’s not a door open ; the “ Argus ” has peered through too many keyholes. It’s all up with Stephen Vallance, unless—ha, there’s something to be done there—-unless he writes a novel. Not much work, a novel, with very broad margins. Brass would publish it. Something out of the way—quiet, sober, like Black; rustic—that’s it; aa idyl. Lots of scenery, wordpainting, peasant life. Well noticed, it will bring me back to life, and show people I am capable of better things than playing the gladiator in the Republic of Letters. They call it a republc, but it’s the most limited monarchy I ever knew.

I had quite decided upon a novel as the instrument of mj rehabilitation when .1 reached my chambers. The letters I found there confirmed me in my resolution, and added thereunto an amendment. The first ran as follows ;

“Sir, —We regret to inform you that unless your several accounts with our firm, the total of which amounts to sixty-five pounds, as the bills already forwarded will prove, have been fully settled at the end of the current month, we shall be obliged to place the matter in the hands our solicitor. —We remain yours obediently, “Jones & Son, Tailors.”

The second appealed to me thus ; “ Sir, —Having several heavy bills to meet at the end of the current month, we shall feel obliged if you will remit without delay the sum of forty-seven pounds eleven shillings, being the amount due to us for divers cases of Roederer, Chablis, and claret, furnished to you during the past year—We remain yours respectfully, “Brown, Robinson & Co., “ Wine Merchants.” The third was longer and somewhat less peremptory:— “My dear Stephen,—l must really, as an old friend of your father’s, do what I can to prevent you wrecking your best chances in life like an angry schoolboy. I can understand your grievance against your uncle, and, as you know, have not scrupled to tell him so. You fell in love with your cousin ; nothing more natural. He insulted you by imputing to you the mercenary motives of a hungry fortune-seeker : nothing more unjustifiab’e. But three years have elapsed. You have forgotten the boyish love affair, so has Emily. You know your uncle’s hobby ; if an archangel came down to woo Emily, Yallance would suspect that he wanted his six thousand a year and Yallance Place in paradise. Your pride ought to be healed by this time. You are destroying all the worldly advantages you name and position give you by this continued show of resentment. You devote yourself to journalism, which Yallance hates, being the one reader of “John Bull ” extant. You avow your connection with the “Argus,” above all things a journal he regards as revolutionary, atheistical, and generally subversive of everything. Only yesterday he handed me the paper with a scowl. It contained that article, a virulent 'piece of satire against justices’ justice. It is a of Henry Yallance, J.P., but do you think it is likely to keep your name in your uncle’s will ? I don’t know whether you wrote it, but he is convinced you did, and I am convinced you won’t undeceive him. My dear boy, I don’t want you to pay court to your uncle for the three or four hundred a year he might leave you. But be reasonable. Yon are five-and twenty. You want a small income to help you at the bar. Emily’s wedding is fixed for this winter. Run down here for a few week’s shooting. Your uncle will forget everything, even the “Argus,” at the first friendly word, and you will return with your future assured.—Ever yours,

* Gko. Silas.’ {To he continued.)