chance act of his that I eventually took to writing and so found my liberty.
This happened some twelve years later, when I was living in a room in Halsey Street, Chelsea, sweating my life out in the dried milk business and earning barely enough at the job to make both ends meet. A hansom stopped suddenly near me in Piccadilly Circus, its occupant shouted my name, then sprang out--Angus Hamilton.
He came round to my room for a talk over old days; he had done well for himself as Reuter's correspondent in the Manchurian War, had published a book on Korea, and was just off to China, again as Reuter's agent. He reminded me of the stories I used to tell in the New York boarding-house. I had written some of these, a couple of dozen perhaps, and they lay in a cupboard. Could he see them? Might he take them away and read them?
It had been my habit and delight to spend my evenings composing yarns on my typewriter, finding more pleasure in this than in any dinner engagement, theatre or concert. Why this suddenly began I cannot say, but I guess at a venture that the accumulated horror of the years in New York was seeking expression. Wandering in Richmond Park at night was the only rival entertainment that could tempt me from the joy of typing out some tale or other in solitude. "Jimbo" I had already written twice, several of the "John Silence" tales as well, and numerous other queer ghostly stories of one sort or another. From among these last Hamilton took a dozen or so away with him, but forgot to send them back as he had promised. He had gone to China, I supposed, and the matter had slipped his mind. It didn't matter much--I went on writing others; the stories were no good to anybody, the important thing being the relief and keen pleasure I found in their expression. But some weeks later a letter came from a publisher: "I have read your book.... My reader tells me ..." this and that "about your stories.... I shall be glad to publish them for you ...," and then a few words about a title and a request
that I would call for an interview.
