'It is you who are shortsighted now, mother. I tell you, you would
manage him better if you just put on your old grey shawl and one of
your bonny white mutches, and went in half smiling and half timid
and said, "I am the mother of him that writes about the Auld
Lichts, and I want you to promise that he will never have to sleep
in the open air."'

But my mother would shake her head at this, and reply almost hotly,
'I tell you if I ever go into that man's office, I go in silk.'

I wrote and asked the editor if I should come to London, and he
said No, so I went, laden with charges from my mother to walk in
the middle of the street (they jump out on you as you are turning a
corner), never to venture forth after sunset, and always to lock up
everything (I who could never lock up anything, except my heart in
company). Thanks to this editor, for the others would have nothing
to say to me though I battered on all their doors, she was soon
able to sleep at nights without the dread that I should be waking
presently with the iron-work of certain seats figured on my person,
and what relieved her very much was that I had begun to write as if
Auld Lichts were not the only people I knew of. So long as I
confined myself to them she had a haunting fear that, even though
the editor remained blind to his best interests, something would
one day go crack within me (as the mainspring of a watch breaks)
and my pen refuse to write for evermore. 'Ay, I like the article
brawly,' she would say timidly, 'but I'm doubting it's the last - I
always have a sort of terror the new one may be the last,' and if
many days elapsed before the arrival of another article her face
would say mournfully, 'The blow has fallen - he can think of
nothing more to write about.' If I ever shared her fears I never