waste basket?" he asked, pointing to a large receptacle
filled to overflowing with manuscripts. "All our Cleveland articles are
there!"

He had gone to great trouble and expense to obtain a series of six
articles from the most prominent publicists and political leaders of
the country on the first year of Mr. Cleveland's second administration.
It was to be the "feature" of the number then in preparation.

"There isn't one of them," he declared, "who has got the point. I have
thrown them all away and I am going to try to write something myself."

And he spent a couple of days turning out an article which aroused great
public interest. When Page commissioned an article, he meant simply that
he would pay full price for it; whether he would publish it depended
entirely upon the quality of the material itself. But Page was just as
severe upon his own writings as upon those of other men. He wrote
occasionally--always under a nom-de-plume; but he had great difficulty
in satisfying his own editorial standards. After finishing an article he
would commonly send for one of his friends and read the result.

"That is superb!" this admiring associate would sometimes say.

In response Page would take the manuscript and, holding it aloft in two
hands, tear it into several bits, and throw the scraps into the waste
basket.

"Oh, I can do better than that," he would laugh and in another minute he
was busy rewriting the article, from beginning to end.

Page retired from the editorship of the _Forum_ in 1895. The severance
of relations was half a comedy, half a tragedy. The proprietors had only
the remotest relation to literature; they had lost much money in the
enterprise before Page became editor and only the fortunate accident of
securing his services had changed their losing venture into a financial
success. In a moment of despair, before the happier period had arrived,
they offered to sell the property to Page and his friends. Page quickly
assembled a new group to purchase control, when, much to the amazement
of the old owners, the _Forum_ began to make money. Instead of having a
burden on their hands, the proprietors suddenly discovered that they had
a gold mine. They therefore refused to deliver their holdings and an
inevitable struggle ensued for control. Page could edit a magazine and
turn a shipwrecked enterprise into a profitable one; but, in a tussle of
this kind, he was no match for the shrewd business men who owned the
p