That was by no means a flight of fancy.

For you must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.

I began trying to commit that sin against my nature when I was fifteen, and persevered, from youthful timidity and diffidence, until I was twenty-three.

My last attempt was in 1879, when a company was formed in London to exploit an ingenious invention by Mr.Thomas Alva Edison--a much too ingenious invention as it proved, being nothing less than a telephone of such stentorian efficiency that it bellowed your most private communications all over the house instead of whispering them with some sort of discretion.

This was not what the British stockbroker wanted; so the company was soon merged in the National Telephone Company, after making a place for itself in the history of literature, quite unintentionally, by providing me with a job.