AN ABSURD LIBEL 279 



publisher, thinking only of business, told him 500. The 

 500 copies were bought and paid for at once, and the 

 publisher regretted he had not said 1000, but his demand 

 did not much overstep the necessary mark, for this was 

 the final state of the poll : 



Miss Kate Vaughan . . . 1268 



Miss Daisy Vern .... 1171 



Mrs Langtry 1012 



Miss Violet Cameron . . . 386 



Miss Constance Gilchrist . . 365 



and so on a very long list. 



But that is no sort of way to promote the circulation 

 of a paper, though it paid well for the time being. 



We were struggling along and doing better each week, 

 but no paper that ever was could be made to pay unless 

 at least sufficient outlay for one year's production is 

 forthcoming before there is a hope of return, and having 

 worked in all the early months single-handed I suc- 

 cumbed to the temptation of a sub-editor, who, though 

 an absolute amateur, invested 500 in the paper. This 

 sum, it was agreed, should be restored to him if he were 

 dismissed, except for misconduct. He was by way of 

 being a poet, and he was also the author of a novel which 

 I myself burlesqued in our paper. It chanced that my 

 good friend, Edward Legge, wrote a very adverse criticism 

 of this novel in some paper with which he was connected 

 at that time, and the indignant author asked me to allow 

 him to attack Legge in our columns. I at once refused 

 any such permission, and told him, if he was ever going 

 to do any good work he should never think of resenting 

 criticism. Besides I would not, in any circumstances, 

 have let him use St Stephen's Review as a medium for 

 his wrath against the man from whom I learned the 

 rudiments of editing. 



So, as I thought, the question was settled, but the sub- 

 editor had the persistence of Robert Bruce's spider and, 



