Here ends the autobiography. A month after this last holiday my friend was dead and buried. He had unsuspected disease of the heart, and one day his master, of whom we have heard something, was more than usually violent. Mark, as his custom was, was silent, but evidently greatly excited. His tyrant left the room; and in a few minutes afterwards Mark was seen to turn white and fall forward in his chair. It was all over! His body was taken to a hospital and thence sent home. The next morning his salary up to the day of his death came in an envelope to his widow, without a single word from his employers save a request for acknowledgment. Towards mid-day, his office coat, and a book found in his drawer, arrived in a brown paper parcel, carriage unpaid.
On looking over his papers, I found the sketch of his life and a mass of odds and ends, some apparently written for publication. Many of these had evidently been in envelopes, and had most likely, therefore, been offered to editors or publishers, but all, I am sure, had been refused. I add one or two by way of appendix, and hope they will be thought worth saving.
R. S.
London:Hodder and Stoughton, 1913.
[7]This was written many years ago, but is curiously pertinent to the discussions of this year.—Editor, 1884.
[31]Not exactly untrue, but it sounds strangely now when socialism, nationalisation of the land, and other projects have renewed in men the hope of regeneration by political processes. The reader will, however, please remember the date of these memoirs.—Editor, 1884.