Another word as to the contributions. In most cases a glance at the first page was sufficient. The MS. was self-condemned. 'Oh!' says the contributor; 'if the editor would only tell me what is wrong, I would alter it.' Dear contributor, no editor has time for teaching. You must send him the paper complete, finished, and ready for press; else it either goes back or lies on the shelf. When Rice handed over the paper to his successor, there were piles of MSS. lying on all the shelves. Where are those MSS. now? To be sure, I do not believe there was one among them all worth having.
Rice wrote a novel by himself, for his own paper. It was a work which he did not reproduce, because there were certain chapters which he wished to re-write. He was always going to re-write these chapters, but never did, and the work remains still in the columns of _Once a Week_, where it may be hunted out by those who are curious. One day, when he was lamenting the haste with which he had been compelled to send off a certain instalment, he told me that he had an idea of another novel, which seemed to him not only possible, but hopeful. He proposed that we should take up this idea together, work it out, if it approved itself to me as it did to him, and write a novel upon it together.
His idea, in the first crude form, was simple--so simple that I wonder it had never occurred to anybody before. The prodigal son was to come home again--apparently repentant--really with the single intention of feigning repentance and getting what he could out of the old man and then going back to his old companions. That was the first germ.
When we came to hammer this out together, a great many modifications became necessary. The profligate, stained with vice, the companion of scoundrels, his conscience hardened and battered and reckless, had yet left, hitherto undiscovered, some human weakness. By this weakness he had to be led back to the better life. Perhaps you have read the story, dear reader. One may say without boasting that it attracted some attention from the outset I even believe that it gave an upward turn--a last gasp--to the circulation of the dying paper.
When--to anticipate a little--the time came for publishing it, we were faced with the fact that a new and anonymous novel is naturally regarded with doubt by publishers. Nothing seems more risky than such a venture. On the other hand, we were perfectly satisfied that there was no risk in our novel at all. This, of course, we had found out, not only from the assurances of Vanity, but also from the reception the work had met with during its progress through the magazine. Therefore, we had it printed and bound at our own expense, and we placed the book, ready for publication, in the hands of Mr. William Tinsley. We so arranged the business that the printer's bill was not due till the first returns came from the publisher. By this artful plan we avoided paying anything at all. We had only printed a modest edition of 600, and these all went off, leaving, of course, a very encouraging margin. The cheap edition was sold to Henry S. King & Co. for a period of five years. Then the novel was purchased outright by Chatto & Windus, who still continue to publish it--and, I believe, to sell it. As things go, a novelist has reason to be satisfied with an immortality which stretches beyond the twenty-first year.