"Mend them--End them," "Grand Old Man," and "Legislation by Picnic" may all be traced to the struggling young man from Wheens.[1] He supplied the material for obituary notices.
When the newspaper placards announced the serious illness of a distinguished man, he made up characteristic anecdotes about his childhood, his reputation at school, his first love, and sent them as the reminiscences of a friend to the great London dailies.

These were the only things of his they used.

As often as not the invalid got better, and then Andrew went without a dinner.
Once he offered his services to a Conservative statesman; at another time he shot himself in the coat in Northumberland Street, Strand, to oblige an evening paper (five shillings).
He fainted in the pit of a theatre to the bribe of an emotional tragedian (a guinea).
He assaulted a young lady and her aunt with a view to robbery, in a quiet thoroughfare, by arrangement with a young gentleman, who rescued them and made him run (ten shillings).
It got into the papers that he had fled from the wax policeman at Tussaud's (half-a-crown).
More than once he sold his body in advance to the doctors, and was never able to buy it out.[2] It would be a labour, thankless as impossible, to recover now all the devices by which Andrew disgraced his manhood during these weeks rather than die.

As well count the "drinks" an actor has in a day.
It is not our part to climb down into the depths after him.

He re-appeared eventually, or this record would never have been written.
During this period of gloom, Clarrie wrote him frequently long and tender epistles.
More strictly, the minister wrote them, for he had the gift of beautiful sentiment in letters, which had been denied to her.
She copied them, however, and signed them, and they were a great consolation.
The love of a good girl is a priceless possession, or rather, in this case, of a good minister.
So long as you do not know which, it does not make much difference.
At times Andrew's reason may have been unhinged, less on account of his reverses than because no one spoke to him.
There were days and nights when he rushed all over London.
In the principal streets the stolid-faced Scotchman in a straw hat became a familiar figure.
Strange fancies held him.