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secret was now likely to be better kept than that of the authorship of
Waverley.
A copy of the work (for the date of my tale is already yesterday) still
figured in dusty solitude in the bookstall at Waterloo; and Gideon, as
he passed with his ticket for Hampton Court, smiled contemptuously at
the creature of his thoughts. What an idle ambition was the author's!
How far beneath him was the practice of that childish art! With his hand
closing on his first brief, he felt himself a man at last; and the
muse who presides over the police romance, a lady presumably of French
extraction, fled his neighbourhood, and returned to join the dance round
the springs of Helicon, among her Grecian sisters.
Robust, practical reflection still cheered the young barrister upon his
journey. Again and again he selected the little country-house in its
islet of great oaks, which he was to make his future home. Like a
prudent householder, he projected improvements as he passed; to one he
added a stable, to another a tennis-court, a third he supplied with a
becoming rustic boat-house.
'How little a while ago,' he could not but reflect, 'I was a careless
young dog with no thought but to be comfortable! I cared for nothing
but boating and detective novels. I would have passed an old-fashioned
country-house with large kitchen-garden, stabling, boat-house, and
spacious offices, without so much as a look, and certainly would have
made no enquiry as to the drains. How a man ripens with the years!'
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