Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/181

 was accepted; since then the House has published several military volumes of mine and many editions of these, serials innumerable and articles and short stories the very number of which I have long forgotten, and through it all I have the recollection of the same abiding courtesy, the same prompt payment, and friendships that remain unbroken."

Interesting sidelights on some of those who wrote for the House are given by Mr. Charles Harrison, among whose contemporaries at Cassell's were Charles Peters and F. J. Crowest. "Peters was a choir boy, and ladies used to say when he wore his surplice that 'he looked like an angel.' But he put on flesh as he grew older, and I hardly think the resemblance was then so obvious. Nevertheless, he ran the Girl's Own Paper, of which he was the founder and editor, with great success. Mr. Crowest was afterwards Mr. Petter's private secretary. He, too, took to music, and sang a tenor song with very considerable charm. Presently he became manager of the Walter Scott Publishing Company.

"As I entered the Yard, John Proctor was leaving it, to begin that career as a cartoonist in which he was so successful. George Manville Fenn, who held an editorial chair for some years, was a skilled reader of the public taste. Other members of the staff were W. B. Tracy—who subsequently went to Manchester—and J. A. Manson, John Williams, Lewis Wright, Daniel Gorrie—whose brother, Sir John, became Chief Justice of Fiji—George Rose Emerson, one of those handy men who were as indispensable to a big publishing house years ago as they are to-day; jolly A. H. Wall, who was afterwards custodian and librarian of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford-on-Avon; and Miss Clara Matéaux, a delightful woman who had an extraordinary aptitude for writing for children.

"A great many outside contributors were constantly coming to the Yard, and of these I can still see in my mind's eye Dr. Francis Waller, one of the most