Having generations of printers' ink mingled with my blood, I could not
escape the unkind fate which made me a writer of articles and books.
In conjunction with a chum named Clement Ireland I ran a manuscript school
journal, which included stories of pirates and highwaymen, illustrated
with lurid designs in which red ink was plentifully employed in order to
picture the gore which flowed so freely through the various tales.
My grandmother Vaughan was an inveterate reader of the _London Journal_
and the _Family Herald_, and whenever I went home for my holidays I used
to pounce upon those journals and devour some of the stories of the author
of "Minnegrey," as well as Miss Braddon's "Aurora Floyd" and "Henry
Dunbar." The perusal of books by Ainsworth, Scott, Lever, Marryat, James
Grant, G. P. R. James, Dumas, and Whyte Melville gave me additional
material for storytelling; and so, concocting wonderful blends of all
sorts of fiction, I spun many a yarn to my schoolfellows in the dormitory
in which I slept--yarns which were sometimes supplied in instalments,
being kept up for a week or longer.
My summer holidays were usually spent in the country, but at other times I
went to London, and was treated to interesting sights.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33