332 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



at noon on a certain day, and I wrote to Phil May giving 

 him the hour and date, with a special note to be punctual. 

 We were to meet outside 10 Downing Street, and I was 

 there exactly to time, but he never turned up, and I, 

 after about twenty minutes of suspense, did not venture 

 to go in without him, but returned and sent a letter by 

 hand to apologise as best I could for our non-appearance. 

 To Phil May I wrote bitterly complaining at his failure 

 to keep such an appointment, and when he declared he 

 had never received a letter from me making the appoint- 

 ment I simply didn't believe him. About a week 

 afterwards, however, there was returned to me my letter 

 addressed 



PHIL MAY, Esq., 

 10 Downing Street, 

 Whitehall. 



And it was marked " Not known." This was the letter 

 in which I made the appointment for him to be there, and 

 it was quite true that he had never received it. I suppose 

 I must have had 10 Downing Street on the brain to have 

 made such a mistake in the address. 



However, it was all over now, and a bitter wrench it 

 was to let go, and give up the struggle for the old paper 

 which I had edited during eight years. Until then I had 

 believed in myself and what I was pleased to consider 

 my destiny. Now I had found a task beyond my capacity, 

 and the shock of the discovery can hardly be realised by 

 anyone who has not gathered that in all my earlier life I 

 had been able to do whatever I set about, and that, too, 

 quite easily. 



Bright hopes seemed now to have vanished like a mere 

 mirage and the outlook was cheerless indeed, for those 

 eight years of continuous storm and stress had left me 

 feeling older than I do now, though twenty-eight other 

 years have passed. The financial position of the paper had 

 been from first to last precarious, for it was a very costly 



