rld, disguised, as I supposed,
beyond the possibility of recognition. The book sold well, and the
eccentric personage was voted a novelty. A few weeks after it was
published a lawyer called upon me, as the agent of the person in the
directory, whose family name I had used, as he maintained, to his
and all his relatives' great damage, wrong, loss, grief, shame, and
irreparable injury, for which the sum of blank thousand dollars would be
a modest compensation. The story made the book sell, but not enough
to pay blank thousand dollars. In the mean time a cousin of mine had
sniffed out the resemblance between the character in my book and our
great-aunt. We were rivals in her good graces. 'Cousin Pansie' spoke to
her of my book and the trouble it was bringing on me,--she was so sorry
about it! She liked my story,--only those personalities, you know. 'What
personalities?' says old granny-aunt. 'Why, auntie, dear, they do say
that he has brought in everybody we know,--did n't anybody tell you
about--well,--I suppose you ought to know it,--did n't anybody tell you
you were made fun of in that novel?' Somebody--no matter who--happened
to hear all this, and told me. She said granny-aunt's withered old face
had two red spots come to it, as if she had been painting her cheeks
from a pink saucer. No, she said, not a pink saucer, but as if they
were two coals of fire. She sent out and got the book, and made her (the
somebody that I was speaking of) read it to her. When she had heard
as much as she could stand,--for 'Cousin Pansie' explained passages
to her,--explained, you know,--she sent for her lawyer, and that same
somebody had to be a witness to a new will she had drawn up. It was not
to my advantage. 'Cousin Pansie' got the corner lot where the grocery
is, and pretty much everything else. The old woman left me a legacy.
What do you think it was? An old set of my own books, that looked as if
it had been bought out of a bankrupt circulating library.

"After that I grew more careful. I studied my disguises much more
diligently. But after all, what could I do? Here I was, writing stories
for my living and my reputation. I made a pretty sum enough, and worked
hard enough to earn it. No tale, no money. Then every story that went
from my workshop had to come up to the standard of my reputation,
and there was a set of critics,--there is a set of critics now
and everywhere,--that watch as narrowly for the decline of a man's
reputation as