Speedily a second edition was called for; then, after a brief interval, a third edition--this time a rational one-volume affair; and the whole lot--6,000 I believe--went off on the day of publication.
Derrick was amazed; but he enjoyed his success very heartily, and I think no one could say that he had leapt into fame at a bound.
Having devoured 'At Strife,' people began to discover the merits of 'Lynwood's Heritage;' the libraries were besieged for it, and a cheap edition was hastily published, and another and another, till the book, which at first had been such a dead failure, rivalled 'At Strife.' Truly an author's career is a curious thing; and precisely why the first book failed, and the second succeeded, no one could explain.
It amused me very much to see Derrick turned into a lion--he was so essentially un-lion-like.

People were for ever asking him how he worked, and I remember a very pretty girl setting upon him once at a dinner-party with the embarrassing request: "Now, do tell me, Mr.Vaughan, how do you write stories?
I wish you would give me a good receipt for a novel." Derrick hesitated uneasily for a minute; finally, with a humorous smile, he said: "Well, I can't exactly tell you, because, more or less, novels grow; but if you want a receipt, you might perhaps try after this fashion:--Conceive your hero, add a sprinkling of friends and relatives, flavour with whatever scenery or local colour you please, carefully consider what circumstances are most likely to develop your man into the best he is capable of, allow the whole to simmer in your brain as long as you can, and then serve, while hot, with ink upon white or blue foolscap, according to taste." The young lady applauded the receipt, but she sighed a little, and probably relinquished all hope of concocting a novel herself; on the whole, it seemed to involve incessant taking of trouble.
About this time I remember, too, another little scene, which I enjoyed amazingly.

I laugh now when I think of it.

I happened to be at a huge evening crush, and rather to my surprise, came across Lawrence Vaughan.
We were talking together, when up came Connington of the Foreign Office.
"I say, Vaughan," he said, "Lord Remington wishes to be introduced to you." I watched the old statesman a little curiously as he greeted Lawrence, and listened to his first words: "Very glad to make your acquaintance, Captain Vaughan; I understand that the author of that grand novel, 'At Strife,' is a brother of yours." And poor Lawrence spent a mauvais quart d'heure, inwardly fuming, I know, at the idea that he, the hero of Saspataras Hill, should be considered merely as 'the brother of Vaughan, the novelist.' Fate, or perhaps I should say the effect of his own pernicious actions, did not deal kindly just now with Lawrence.

Somehow Freda learnt about that will, and, being no bread-and-butter miss, content meekly to adore her fiance and deem him faultless, she 'up and spake' on the subject, and I fancy poor Lawrence must have had another mauvais quart d'heure.
It was not this, however, which led to a final breach between them; it was something which Sir Richard discovered with regard to Lawrence's life at Dover.