burning our throats with the iced tea and
with considerable discomfort swallowing the simmering cold roast
filet, which we had to eat hastily before the heat of the day
transformed it into smoked beef. My youngest boy Willie perspired so
copiously that we seriously thought of sending for a plumber to solder
up his pores, and as for myself who have spent three summers of my
life in the desert of Sahara in order to rid myself of nervous chills
to which I was once unhappily subject, for the first time in my life I
was impelled to admit that it was intolerably warm. And then the
telephone bell rang.

"Great Scott!" I cried, "Who in thunder do you suppose wants to play
golf on a day like this?"--for nowadays our telephone is used for no
other purpose than the making or the breaking of golf engagements.

"Me," cried my eldest son, whose grammar is not as yet on a par with
his activity. "I'll go."

The boy shot out of the dining room and ran to the telephone,
returning in a few moments with the statement that a gentleman with a
husky voice whose name was none of his business wished to speak with
me on a matter of some importance to myself.

I was loath to go. My friends the book agents had recently acquired
the habit of approaching me over the telephone, and I feared that here
was another nefarious attempt to foist a thirty-eight volume tabloid
edition of _The World's Worst Literature_ upon me. Nevertheless I
wisely determined to respond.

"Hello," I said, placing my lips against the rubber cup. "Hello there,
who wants 91162 Nepperhan?"

"Is that you?" came the answering question, and, as my boy had
indicated, in a voice whose chief quality was huskiness.

"I guess so," I replied facetiously;--"It was this morning, but the
heat has affected me somewhat, and I don't feel as much like myself as
I might. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing, but you can do a lot for yourself," was the astonishing
answer. "Pretty hot for literary work, isn't it?" the voice added
sympathetically.

"Very," said I. "Fact is I can't seem to do anything these days but
perspire."

"That's what I thought; and when you can't work ruin stares you in the
face, eh? Now I have a manuscript--"

"Oh Lord!" I cried. "Don't. There are millions in the same fix. Even
my cook writes."

"Don't know about that," he returned instantly. "But I do know that
there's millions in my manuscript. And you can have it for the asking.
How's that for an offer?"