But when, the very next week after this protest was made, the circulation of the paper increased some thousands at a bound, my employer's critical estimate of the work underwent a rapid change--a change based on what seemed to him better than merely literary considerations.

By the time the story closed, at the end of fourteen instalments, the subscription list had multiplied itself four or five fold.

It is only fair to admit, however, that the original multiplicand had been rather small.
Papers in Canada and in some of the other English colonies transferred the novel bodily to their columns, and many of the American country papers helped themselves to it quite freely.

It had run some weeks of its course before it occurred to any one that it might profitably be reprinted in book form.

The publishers were loath to risk much in the venture.