morning and took my simple breakfast at a restaurant. For some occult reason, I have never been able to make coffee even remotely resembling that customarily prepared by my immediate ancestor on the feminine side.

The long, business-like envelopes which I received every morning contributed largely to my local importance, and the gossip of the place buzzed eternally about my head. According to some, I was an insurance agent. Others admitted me to the bar without examination, and a certain keen observer, well up in the guileful ways of commerce, thought I had paid two dollars to get my name on somebody’s “list,” thereby being guaranteed “lots of mail.”

Fortunately, no hint of my true calling escaped, and the rejection blanks continued to accumulate. I have preserved these with the idea of incorporating them in a psychological treatise on The Gentle Art of Turning Down, which will be printed as soon as I get a publisher for the noble, epoch-making volume upon which I am at present engaged.

I had learned that editors were variable, and were not always what they seemed. A rejection was merely an indication of the man’s mood at the time he got my piece, and I have, more than once, sold the same thing to him later for a goodly sum. I offer no explanation of this, as my field is limited to animal, rather than human observations, and the Labor Union to which I belong is very strict in such matters. I may be permitted to add, however, that one editor, to whom I sent a mental fledgling for the second or third time, wrote me a personal letter in which he said that he was no more of a fool now than he was three months ago. I do not know what he could have meant by the statement, but I record it in the hope that someone else may.

For a long period there had been nothing in my note-book but maltese crosses and items pertaining to the weather and to my daily tasks. One morning it rained so hard that I was obliged to postpone my walk to town until afternoon. I made the journey in the usual time, secured the customary number of returned manuscripts, and bought stamps to send them out again. I thought, as I turned away, that the pursuit of literature was little more than sending out manuscripts to get money to buy stamps to send out manuscripts to get money to buy stamps to send out manuscripts to get money to buy stamps to—but I forbear. My meditations ran on like this for three pages or more, and the end was like the beginning, so what’s the use?

As I approached the station, I saw several of my fellow-townsmen headed for the 

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