Today has been more or less feverish. In the morning's mail I received
a letter from Berlin asking permission to translate "Gallegher" into
German, and a proof of a paragraph from The Critic on my burlesque of
Rudyard Kipling, which was meant to please but which bored me. Then
the "Raegen" story came in, making nine pages of the Scribner's, which
at ten dollars a page ought to be $90. Pretty good pay for three
weeks' work, and it is a good story. Then at twelve a young man came
bustling into the office, stuck his card down on the desk and said, "I
am S. S. McClure. I have sent my London representative to Berlin and
my New York man to London. Will you take charge of my New York end?"

If he thought to rattle me he was very much out of it, for I said in
his same tone and manner, "Bring your New York representative back and
send me to London, and I'll consider it. As long as I am in New York I
will not leave The Evening Sun."

"Edmund Gosse is my London representative," he said; "you can have the
same work here. Come out and take lunch." I said, "Thank you, I can't;
I'll see you on Tuesday."

"All right," he said. "I'll come for you. Think of what I say. I'll
make your fortune. Bradford Merrill told me to get you. You won't
have anything to do but ask people to write novels and edit them. I'll
send you abroad later if you don't like New York. Can you write any
children's stories for me?"

"No," I said, "see you Tuesday."

This is a verbal report of all and everything that was said. I
consider it a curious interview. It will raise my salary here or I go.
What do YOU think? DICK.

NEW YORK--1890.

DEAR FAMILY:

The more I thought of the McClure offer the less I thought of it. So I
told him last night I was satisfied where I was, and that the $75 he
offered me was no inducement. Brisbane says I will get $50 about the
first of October, which is plenty and enough for a young man who
intends to be good to his folks. I cannot do better than stay where I
am, for it is understood between Brisbane and Laffan that in the event
of the former's going into politics I shall take his place, which will
suit very well until something better turns up. Then there is the
chance of White's coming back and my going to Lunnon, which would
please me now more for what I think I could make of it than what I
think others have made of it. If I had gone to McClure I would have
been shelved and side-tracked, and I