They were rejected often, but re-despatched a second and a third time, if necessary, to some other "organ," and eventually swallowed by some editor or other.
I am surprised, too, at the amount of locomotion which I contrived to combine with all this scribbling.

I must have gone about, I think, like a tax-gatherer, with an inkstand slung to my button-hole! And in truth I was industrious; for I find myself in full swing of some journey, arriving at my inn tired at night, and finishing and sending off some article before I went to my bed.

But it must have been only by means of the joint supplies contributed by all my editors that I could have found the means of paying all the stage-coaches, diligences, and steamboats which I find the record of my continually employing.

"_Navibus atque Quadrigis petimus bene vivere!_" And I succeeded by their means in living, if not well, at least very pleasantly.
For I was born a rambler.
I heard just now a story of a little boy, who replied to the common question, "What he would like to be when he grew up ?" by saying that he should like to be either a giant or a _retired_ stockbroker! I find the qualifying adjective delicious, and admire the pronounced taste for repose indicated by either side of the alternative.

But my propensities were more active, and in the days before I entered my teens I used always to reply to similar demands, that I would be a "king's messenger"! I knew no other life which approached so nearly to perpetual motion.