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dinner, he reminded Mr Asquith, M.P. (a school-fellow of Reed's) that at the school debating society they had "led off" on separate sides in a wordy battle on the red-hot controversy of "Queen Elizabeth versus Queen Mary." Every boy who has read "Sir Ludar" will remember that the hero of that charming story and Humphrey Dexter fall to blows on the same dangerous subject.
I cannot find that in his masterly pictures of public school life he drew much from his experiences at the City of London School, except, perhaps, in a few details, such as the rivalry which he describes so vividly as existing between the fifth and sixth forms in his delightful book, "The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's." In Reed's day there was no such "set" among the juniors at the City of London School as the "guinea-pigs" and "tadpoles," who play so important a part in the story; but in a room devoted to the juniors, known as the "horse-shoe," in the old school buildings in Milk Street, many of the pranks and battles of the "guinea-pigs" and "tadpoles" were played and fought.
In 1869, at the age of seventeen, Reed left school, and joined his father and elder brother Andrew in the great firm of type-founders in Fann Street. He threw himself with strenuous application into the new work, maintaining at the same time with equal keenness his interest in football, wishing nothing better than a fierce game--"three hacks on one leg, and four on the other," as he said, and glorying in his wounds. The same strenuous energy applied to his reading at this period. A friend tells me that in a letter about this time he speaks of devouring "five of Scott's novels in a month, resulting in parental remonstrance; history; and a Greek play, in which he is not so 'rusty' as he feared." In Fann Street his practical business energies found free play, although the bias of his mind undoubtedly lay towards literature rather than commerce; but for nearly a quarter of a century he devoted himself to this work with a degree of success that was to be expected of his talents, the conscientious uprightness of his character, and his unceasing industry. At the death of Sir Charles Reed, and of his brother Andrew, Talbot became the managing director of the Type-foundry, and held that position to the time of his death.
Reed had not long left school when his creative literary instincts began to assert themselves. His apprenticeship in literature may be said to have been served in the editing of an exceedingly clever family magazine, called The Earlsmead Chronicle, which circulated in the family and among friends.
His earliest printed effort appeared in 1875, in a little magazine for young people, called The Morning of Life (published in America by Messrs. Thomas Nelson and Sons. It is, by the way, a noteworthy coincidence that his first and last printed work should have been issued by this house). His contribution to The Morning of Life was an account in two parts of a boating expedition on the Thames, entitled "Camping Out." It has in it the promise of the freshness and vigour that were in such abundant degree characteristic of all his later descriptions of boy life.
It was in the pages of the Boy's Own Paper that Reed found his metier. Its editor writes: "From the very first number of the paper Mr Reed has been so closely and continuously identified with it, that his removal creates a void it will be impossible to fill." Any one looking through the volumes of this most admirably-conducted boys' paper will see that Talbot Reed's work is indeed the backbone of it. In Number One, Volume One, the first article, "My First Football Match," is by him; and during that year (1879) and the following years he wrote vivid descriptions of cricket-matches, boat-races; "A Boating Adventure at Parkhurst;" "The Troubles of a Dawdler;" and a series of papers on "Boys in English History." There was also a series of clever sketches of boy life, called "Boys we have Known," "The Sneak," "The Sulky Boy," "The Boy who is never Wrong," etcetera.
These short flights led the way, and prepared him for the longer and stronger flights that were to follow. In 1880 his first boys' book began to appear in the Boy's Own Paper, entitled "The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch." Charlie Newcome, the youthful hero, is a charming creation, tenderly and pathetically painted, and the story abounds in thrilling incident, and in that freshness of humour which appears more or less in all the Public School Stories. In the following year came a story of much greater power, "The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's," by many boys considered the best of all his stories. It deserves