s, three times a day.
An occasional dinner at Ruth's helped to keep strength in his body,
though he found it tantalizing enough to refuse further helping when his
appetite was raging at sight of so much food spread before it. Now and
again, though afflicted with secret shame, he dropped in at his sister's
at meal-time and ate as much as he dared--more than he dared at the Morse
table.

Day by day he worked on, and day by day the postman delivered to him
rejected manuscripts. He had no money for stamps, so the manuscripts
accumulated in a heap under the table. Came a day when for forty hours
he had not tasted food. He could not hope for a meal at Ruth's, for she
was away to San Rafael on a two weeks' visit; and for very shame's sake
he could not go to his sister's. To cap misfortune, the postman, in his
afternoon round, brought him five returned manuscripts. Then it was that
Martin wore his overcoat down into Oakland, and came back without it, but
with five dollars tinkling in his pocket. He paid a dollar each on
account to the four tradesmen, and in his kitchen fried steak and onions,
made coffee, and stewed a large pot of prunes. And having dined, he sat
down at his table-desk and completed before midnight an essay which he
entitled "The Dignity of Usury." Having typed it out, he flung it under
the table, for there had been nothing left from the five dollars with
which to buy stamps.

Later on he pawned his watch, and still later his wheel, reducing the
amount available for food by putting stamps on all his manuscripts and
sending them out. He was disappointed with his hack-work. Nobody cared
to buy. He compared it with what he found in the newspapers, weeklies,
and cheap magazines, and decided that his was better, far better, than
the average; yet it would not sell. Then he discovered that most of the
newspapers printed a great deal of what was called "plate" stuff, and he
got the address of the association that furnished it. His own work that
he sent in was returned, along with a stereotyped slip informing him that
the staff supplied all the copy that was needed.

In one of the great juvenile periodicals he noted whole columns of
incident and anecdote. Here was a chance. His paragraphs were returned,
and though he tried repeatedly he never succeeded in placing one. Later
on, when it no longer mattered, he learned that the associate editors and
sub-editors augmented their salaries by supplying those