The publisher contributes about as much as the bookseller in time and bodily labour, but in mental toil and trouble a great deal more. I speak with some personal knowledge of the matter, having myself, for some twenty years, inflicted on that most patient and painstaking firm, Messrs. Macmillan and Co., about as much wear and worry as ever publishers have lived through. The day when they undertake a book for me is a dies nefastus for them. From that day till the book is out—an interval of some two or three years on an average—there is no pause in “the pelting of the pitiless storm” of directions and questions on every conceivable detail. To say that every question gets a courteous and thoughtful reply—that they are still outside a lunatic asylum—and that they still regard me with some degree of charity—is to speak volumes in praise of their good temper and of their health, bodily and mental. I think the publisher’s claim on the profits is on the whole stronger than the bookseller’s.