s body and brain, power to go on writing, and--who was to say?--maybe
to write something that would bring in many pieces of gold. Clear on his
vision burned the manuscripts of two essays he had just completed. He
saw them under the table on top of the heap of returned manuscripts for
which he had no stamps, and he saw their titles, just as he had typed
them--"The High Priests of Mystery," and "The Cradle of Beauty." He had
never submitted them anywhere. They were as good as anything he had done
in that line. If only he had stamps for them! Then the certitude of his
ultimate success rose up in him, an able ally of hunger, and with a quick
movement he slipped the coin into his pocket.

"I'll pay you back, Gertrude, a hundred times over," he gulped out, his
throat painfully contracted and in his eyes a swift hint of moisture.

"Mark my words!" he cried with abrupt positiveness. "Before the year is
out I'll put an even hundred of those little yellow-boys into your hand.
I don't ask you to believe me. All you have to do is wait and see."

Nor did she believe. Her incredulity made her uncomfortable, and failing
of other expedient, she said:-

"I know you're hungry, Mart. It's sticking out all over you. Come in to
meals any time. I'll send one of the children to tell you when Mr.
Higginbotham ain't to be there. An' Mart--"

He waited, though he knew in his secret heart what she was about to say,
so visible was her thought process to him.

"Don't you think it's about time you got a job?"

"You don't think I'll win out?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Nobody has faith in me, Gertrude, except myself." His voice was
passionately rebellious. "I've done good work already, plenty of it, and
sooner or later it will sell."

"How do you know it is good?"

"Because--" He faltered as the whole vast field of literature and the
history of literature stirred in his brain and pointed the futility of
his attempting to convey to her the reasons for his faith. "Well,
because it's better than ninety-nine per cent of what is published in the
magazines."

"I wish't you'd listen to reason," she answered feebly, but with
unwavering belief in the correctness of her diagnosis of what was ailing
him. "I wish't you'd listen to reason," she repeated, "an' come to
dinner to-morrow."

After Martin had helped her on the car, he hurried to the post-office and
invested three of the five dollars in stamps; and when, later in t