Short Fiction

more than I have said already. You haven’t got anything for me to do, I suppose?” Then I explained to him that I had something he might do, if I could venture to entrust him with the work. With some trouble I got him to sit down again, and to listen while I explained to him the circumstances. I had been grievously afflicted when he alluded to his former habit of drinking⁠—a former habit as he himself now stated⁠—but I entertained no hesitation in raising questions as to his erudition. I felt almost assured that his answers would be satisfactory, and that no discomfiture would arise from such questioning. We were quickly able to perceive that we at any rate could not examine him in classical literature. As soon as we mentioned the name and nature of the work he went off at score, and satisfied us amply that he was familiar at least with the title pages of editions. We began, indeed, to fear whether he might not be too caustic a critic on our own friend’s performance. “Dr. ⸻ is only an amateur himself,” said we, deprecating in advance any such exercise of the red-nosed man’s too severe erudition. “We never get much beyond dilettanteism here,” said he, “as far as Greek and Latin are concerned.” What a terrible man he would have been could he have got upon the staff of the Saturday Review, instead of going to the Spotted Dog!

We endeavoured to bring the interview to an end by telling him that we would consult the learned doctor from whom the manuscript had emanated; and we hinted that a reference would be of course acceptable. His impudence⁠—or perhaps we should rather call it his straightforward sincere audacity⁠—was unbounded. “Mr. Grimes of the Spotted Dog knows me better than anyone else,” said he. We blew the breath out of our mouth with astonishment. “I’m not asking you to go to him to find out whether I know Latin and Greek,” said Mr. Mackenzie. “You must find that out for yourself.” We assured him that we thought we had found that out. “But he can tell you that I won’t pawn your manuscript.” The man was so grim and brave that he almost frightened us. We hinted, however, that literary reference should be given. The gentleman who paid him forty-five shillings a week⁠—the manager, in short, of the “Penny Dreadful,”⁠—might tell us something of him. Then he wrote for us a name on a scrap of paper, and added to it an address in the close vicinity of Fleet Street, at which we remembered to have seen the title of a periodical which we now knew to be a “Penny Dreadful.”

Before he took his leave he made us a speech, again standing up over us, though we also were on our legs. It was that bend in his neck, combined with his natural height, which gave him such an air of superiority in conversation. He seemed to overshadow us, and to have his own way with us, because he was enabled to look down upon us. There was a footstool on our hearthrug, and we remember to have attempted to stand upon that, in order that we might escape this supervision; but we stumbled and had to kick it from us, and something was added to our sense of inferiority by this little failure. “I don’t expect much from this,” he said. “I never do expect much. And I have misfortunes independent of my poverty which make it impossible that I should be other than a miserable wretch.”

“Bad health?” we asked.

“No;⁠—nothing absolutely personal;⁠—but never mind. I must not trouble you with more of my history. But if you can do this thing for me, it may be the means of redeeming me from utter degradation.” We then assured him that we would do our best, and he left us with a promise that he would call again on that day week.

The first step which we took on his behalf was one the very idea of which had at first almost moved us to ridicule. We made enquiry respecting Mr. Julius Mackenzie, of Mr. Grimes, the landlord of the Spotted Dog. Though Mr. Grimes did keep the Spotted Dog, he might be a man of sense and, possibly, of conscience. At any rate he would tell us something, or confirm our doubts by refusing to tell us anything. We found Mr. Grimes seated in a very neat little back parlour, and were peculiarly taken by the appearance of a lady in a little cap and black silk gown, whom we soon found to be Mrs. Grimes. Had we ventured to employ our intellect in personifying for ourselves an imaginary Mrs. Grimes as the landlady of a Spotted Dog public-house in Liquorpond Street, the figure we should have built up for ourselves would have been the very opposite of that which this lady presented to us. She was slim, and young, and pretty, and had pleasant little tricks of words, in spite of occasional slips in her grammar, which made us almost think that it might be our duty to come very often to the Spotted Dog to enquire about Mr. Julius Mackenzie. Mr. Grimes was a man about forty⁠—fully ten years the senior of his wife⁠—with a clear gray eye, and a mouth and chin from which we surmised that he would be competent to clear the Spotted Dog of unruly visitors after twelve o’clock, whenever it might be his wish to do so. We soon made known our request. Mr. Mackenzie had come to us for literary employment. Could they tell us anything about Mr. Mackenzie?

“He’s as clever an author, in the way of writing and that kind of thing, as there is in all London,” said Mrs. Grimes with energy. Perhaps her opinion ought not to have been taken for much, but it had its weight. We explained, however, that at the present moment we were