"Ah!" said Besant, "how funny! Do you know, I overheard two of my little girls talking a few mornings ago, and one said to the other, 'Papa does not write all his stories, you know--Charlie Green helps him.'"
(Green was at the time illustrating Besant's "Chaplain of the Fleet.")
My second instance occurred about the same period. The author was the most delightful and entertaining of literary men of our time, Mr. James Payn. I was selected to illustrate the serial story in the _Illustrated London News_, and as in that also the author minutely describes the scene of the semi-historical romance, I, being a thoroughly conscientious artist, visited James Payn, then editor of _Cornhill_, in his editorial den in Waterloo Place, to talk the matter over. My notes were: "Jetty--Lovers meet--Ancient church--Old houses." But the "Jetty" was _the_ important object--I must get that. I therefore started for the South Coast. Again I was forced to bow down before my author's wonderful powers of imagination, for once more, in company with my wife, with a hireling to carry my sketching stool and materials, I walked a great distance in search of the jetty. Vain, vain! not a ghost of a jetty was to be seen. The menial could not enlighten us. At last we unearthed the "oldest inhabitant," who took us back to where a few sticks in the water alone marked where it stood "a many years ago." I tried to develop some of the powers of the late Professor Owen, when he constructed an animal from the smallest bone, and succeeded in "evolving" a jetty from the green remains of four wooden posts.
I forgave Payn as I forgave Besant. Both men were as genial as they were eminent, and but for the circumstances of illustrating their stories I might not have enjoyed their acquaintanceship. I also illustrated Payn's most charming story, "The Talk of the Town," for _Cornhill Magazine_. I never enjoyed any work of the kind so well as this--it has always been my regret Payn did not write another of the same period. I recollect, when I first saw him in Waterloo Place, I had just read an article of his in which he gave a recipe for getting rid of callers, which was to bring the conversation to an abrupt termination, say absolutely nothing, but steadfastly stare at your visitor until he left. I can vouch for its being a simple and effective plan.