'Hallo, Robinson!' he exclaimed in his surprise, 'you don't mean to say that you---- '
And then he stopped and regarded my youthful appearance very critically.
'Yes, Mr. Kenny--it's a novel,' I said modestly; 'my first.'
'There's plenty of it,' he remarked dryly. 'I'll send it upstairs at once. And I'll wish you luck, too; but,' he added, kindly preparing to soften the shock of a future refusal, 'we have plenty of these come in--about seven a day--and most of them go back to their writers again.'
'Ye-es, I suppose so,' I answered, with a sigh.
For a while, however, I regarded the meeting as a happy augury--a lucky coincidence. I even had the vain, hopeless notion that Mr. Kenny might put in a good word for me, ask for special consideration, out of that kindly feeling which we had for each other, and which chess antagonists have invariably for each other, I am inclined to believe. But though we met three or four times a week, from that day forth not one word concerning the fate of my manuscript escaped the lips of Mr. Kenny. It is probable the incident had passed from his memory; he had nothing to do with the novel department itself, and the delivery of MSS. was a very common everyday proceeding to him. I was too bashful, perhaps too proud, an individual to ask any questions; but every evening that I encountered him I used to wonder 'if he had heard anything,' if any news of the book's fate had reached him, directly or indirectly; occasionally even, as time went on, I was disposed to imagine that he was letting me win the game out of kindness--for he was a gentle, kindly soul always--in order to soften the shock of a disappointment which he knew perfectly well was on its way towards me.
Some months afterwards, the fateful letter came to me from the firm, regretting its inability to make use of the MS., and expressing many thanks for a perusal of the same--a polite, concise, all-round kind of epistle, which a publisher is compelled to keep in stock, and to send out when rejected literature pours forth like a waterfall from the dusky caverns of a publishing house in a large way of business. It was all over, then--I had failed! From that hour I would turn chess player, and soften my brain in a quest for silver cups or champion amateur stakes. I could play chess better than I could write fiction, I was sure. Still, after some days of dead despair, I sent the MS. once more on its travels--this time to Smith & Elder's, whose reader, Mr. Williams, had leapt into singular prominence since his favourable judgment of Charlotte Brontë's book, and to whom most MSS. flowed spontaneously for many years afterwards. And in due course of time, Mr. Williams, acting for Messrs. Smith & Elder, asked me to call upon him--_for the MS.!_--at Cornhill, and there I received my first advice, my first thrill of exultation. 'Presently, and probably, _and with perseverance_,' he said, 'you will succeed in literature, and if you will remember now, that to write a good novel is a very considerable achievement. Years of short story-writing is the best apprenticeship for you. Write and rewrite, and spare no pains.' I thanked him, and I went home with tears in my eyes of gratitude and consolation, though my big story had been declined with thanks. But I did not write again. I put away my MS., and went on for six or eight hours a day at chess for many idle months before I was in the vein for composition, and then, with a sudden dash, I began 'The House of Elmore.' It was half finished when another strange incident occurred. I received one morning a letter from Lascelles Wraxall (afterwards Sir Lascelles Wraxall, Bart., as the reader may be probably aware), informing me that he was one of the readers for Messrs. Hurst & Blackett, and that it had been his duty some time ago to decide unfavourably against a story which I had submitted to the notice of his firm, but that he had intended to write to me a private note urging me to adopt literature as a profession. His principal object in writing at that time was to suggest my trying the fortunes of the novel, which he had already read, with Messrs. Routledge, and he kindly added a letter of introduction to that firm in the Broadway--an introduction which, by the way, never came to anything.