FullReads

This was many a year ago. To-day a list of these men’s names with a cross against that of each one whom I know to be dead would look like a Roman Catholic cemetery. I could dine all the survivors at the table on which I write, and I should like to do so. But the dead ones, I must say, were the best diners.

But about Sole Surviving. There was a London publisher named John Camden Hotten. Among American writers he had a pretty dark reputation as a “pirate.” They accused him of republishing their books without their assent, which, in absence of international copyright, he had a legal, and it seems to me (a “sufferer”) a moral right to do. Through sympathy with their foreign confreres British writers also held him in high disesteem.

I knew Hotten very well, and one day I stood by what purported to be his body, which afterward I assisted to bury in the cemetery at Highgate. I am sure that it was his body, for I was uncommonly careful in the matter of identification, for a very good reason, which you shall know.

Aside from his “piracy,” Hotten had a wide renown as “a hard man to deal with.” For several months before his death he had owed me one hundred pounds sterling, and he could not possibly have been more reluctant to part with anything but a larger sum. Even to this day in reviewing the intelligent methods–ranging from delicate finesse to frank effrontery–by which that good man kept me out of mine own I am prostrated with admiration and consumed with envy. Finally by a lucky chance I got him at a disadvantage and seeing my power he sent his manager–a fellow named Chatto, who as a member of the firm of Chatto & Windus afterward succeeded to his business and methods–to negotiate. I was the most implacable creditor in the United Kingdom, and after two mortal hours of me in my most acidulated mood Chatto pulled out a check for the full amount, ready signed by Hotten in anticipation of defeat. Before handing it to me Chatto said: “This check is dated next Saturday. Of course you will not present it until then.”

To this I cheerfully consented.

“And now,” said Chatto, rising to go, “as everything is satisfactory I hope you will go out to Hotten’s house and have a friendly talk. It is his wish.”

On Saturday morning I went. In pursuance, doubtless, of his design when he antedated that check he had died of a pork pie promptly on the stroke of twelve o’clock the night before–which invalidated the check! I have met American publishers who thought they knew something about the business of drinking champagne out of writers’ skulls. If this narrative–which, upon my soul, is every word true–teaches them humility by showing that genuine commercial sagacity is not bounded by geographical lines it will have served its purpose.

Having assured myself that Mr. Hotten was really no more, I drove furiously bank-ward, hoping that the sad tidings had not preceded me–and they had not.

Alas! on the route was a certain tap-room greatly frequented by authors, artists, newspaper men and “gentlemen of wit and pleasure about town.”

Sitting about the customary table were a half-dozen or more choice spirits–George Augustus Sala, Henry Sampson, Tom Hood the younger, Captain Mayne Reid, and others less known to fame. I am sorry to say my somber news affected these sinners in a way that was shocking. Their levity was a thing to shudder at. As Sir Boyle Roche might have said, it grated harshly upon an ear that had a dubious check in its pocket. Having uttered their hilarious minds by word of mouth all they knew how, these hardy and impenitent offenders set about writing “appropriate epitaphs.” Thank Heaven, all but one of these have escaped my memory, one that I wrote myself. At the close of the rites, several hours later, I resumed my movement against the bank. Too late–the old, old story of the hare and the tortoise was told again. The “heavy news” had overtaken and passed me as I loitered by the wayside.