d" fits almost any kind of a book. It is a nice, non-committal sort
of title, and might mean the guilt that bound two sinners, or the tie of
affection that binds lovers, or a blood relationship, or it might be a
mystification title with nothing in the book about it.

But the choice settled itself. One morning a manuscript arrived that was
tied with a piece of red twine, and we chose that one for good luck
because of the twine. Perkins said that was a sufficient excuse for the
title, too. We would publish the book anonymously, and let it be known
that the only clue to the writer was the crimson cord with which the
manuscript was tied when we received it. It would be a first-class
advertisement.

Perkins, however, was not much interested in the story, and he left me
to settle the details. I wrote to the author asking him to call, and he
turned out to be a young woman.

Our interview was rather shy. I was a little doubtful about the proper
way to talk to a real author, being purely a Chicagoan myself, and I had
an idea that while my usual vocabulary was good enough for business
purposes it might be too easy-going to impress a literary person
properly, and in trying to talk up to her standard I had to be very
careful in my choice of words. No publisher likes to have his authors
think he is weak in the grammar line.

Miss Rosa Belle Vincent, however, was quite as flustered as I was. She
seemed ill-at-ease and anxious to get away, which I supposed was because
she had not often conversed with publishers who paid a thousand dollars
cash in advance for a manuscript.

She was not at all what I had thought an author would look like. She
didn't even wear glasses. If I had met her on the street I should have
said: "There goes a pretty flip stenographer." She was that kind--big
picture hat and high pompadour.

I was afraid she would try to run the talk into literary lines and Ibsen
and Gorky, where I would have been swamped in a minute, but she didn't,
and, although I had wondered how to break the subject of money when
conversing with one who must be thinking of nobler things, I found she
was less shy when on that subject than when talking about her book.

"Well now," I said, as soon as I had got her seated, "we have decided to
buy this novel of yours. Can you recommend it as a thoroughly
respectable and intellectual production?"

She said she could.

"Haven't you read it?" she asked in some surprise.

"No," I stammered.