He professed that he did not think much of the trade of a journalist, and told Stanbury that he was sinking from the highest to almost the lowest business by which an educated man and a gentleman could earn his bread.

Stanbury had simply replied that he saw some bread on the one side, but none on the other; and that bread from some side was indispensable to him.

Then there had come to be that famous war between Great Britain and the republic of Patagonia, and Hugh Stanbury had been sent out as a special correspondent by the editor and proprietor of the Daily Record.
His letters had been much read, and had called up a great deal of newspaper pugnacity.

He had made important statements which had been flatly denied, and found to be utterly false; which again had been warmly reasserted and proved to be most remarkably true to the letter.

In this way the correspondence, and he as its author, became so much talked about that, on his return to England, he did actually sell his gown and wig and declare to his friends,--and to Trevelyan among the number,--that he intended to look to journalism for his future career.
He had been often at the house in Curzon Street in the earliest happy days of his friend's marriage, and had thus become acquainted,--intimately acquainted,--with Nora Rowley.