Stamp side-lining isn't goat-feathering. The genuine variety is eagle-feather gathering, and I am as proud of my eagle-feathers as I am sour on my goat-feathers.

   Now it is a fine thing to be treasurer of the Flushing Hospital, and it is a fine thing to be president of the Flushing Country Club, but the goat-feathers pall when you know that the reason you were given those glories was because nobody else would take them. It's a "grand and glorious feelin'" to know you can take some affair and make it a success, or a near-success; but it is not business. A man may make a success of a Flushing Public Playground and not be making a success of himself. He may be making a goat of himself. The chances are ten to one that he is making a goat of himself.

   I'll never get the Pulitzer prize for the best novel or for the best play, but if there was a Pulitzer prize for the greatest human goat nobody else would be in the running. I have not got goat-feathers by the dozen or by the pound—I have them by the bale. I estimate that if all my goat-feathers were placed end to end they would reach from the bread line to the poor-house.

   It is just possible that by this time you may gather that I have a grouch on myself. If so, you are right. To-day I am forty-nine years and six months old, and as a bright and shining literary light I am exactly where I was twelve years ago. I am twelve years older and have that much less time in which to complete the joy of making good as one of the great American authors. Presently the infirmities of age will begin to gnaw at me, the moths will ruin my flossy collection of goat-feathers, all those who now pat me on the back because they can make use of me free of charge will forget that I am alive, and my executors will shake their heads and say, "Ain't it too bad he left so little!"

   Distraction isn't really good for a man if he wants to reach a goal. No salesman ever got very far by carrying too many side lines. The poorest sort of monopoly for any man to undertake is a monopoly of goat-feathers.

   No man in the world had a better chance to make himself the Great American Humorist than I had when I wrote "Pigs is Pigs." I had a good, solid foundation of fairly good humorous work under it and the little story had a wonderful success. The thing for me to have done then was to stick to humor, regardless of anything. I have written dainty stories, sympathetic stories, serious stories, all kinds of stories, but not many humorous stories. It is surprising how often editors have had to announce "A 

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