own to a Business Basis, the Author Switched.

"Get what you can on it," he said. "It seems a Shame to go and Market
that kind of Scroll-Work; still if it hits you, it may be Bad enough to
affect others having the same Shape of Head. I need the Money and I have
no Shame."

Thereupon the Friend sent the Verses to the Publisher of a Family
Monthly that Percolates into every Postoffice in the Country. In a few
Days there came a tear-stained Acceptance and a Check. The Author said
it was just like Finding $22.50, and he thought that was the End of it.

[Illustration: LANTERN SLIDE]

But when the Verses came out in the Monthly he began to get Letters from
all parts of the United States telling him how much Suffering and
Opening of Old Wounds had been caused by his little Poem about Willie
and how Proud he ought to be. Many who wrote expressed Sympathy for him,
and begged him to Bear Up. These Letters dazed the Author. He never had
owned any Boy named Willie. He did not so much as Know a Boy named
Willie. He lived in an Office Building with a lot of Stenographers and
Bill Clerks. If he had been the Father of a Boy named Willie, and Willie
had ever come to tell him "Good Night" when he was busy at Something
Else, probably he would have jumped at Willie and snapped a piece out of
his Arm. Just the Same, the Correspondents wrote to him from All Over,
and said they could read Grief in every Line of his Grand Composition.

That was only the Get-Away. The next thing he knew, some Composer in
Philadelphia had set the Verses to Music and they were sung on the Stage
with colored Lantern-Slide Pictures of little Willie telling Papa "Good
Night" in a Blue Flat with Lace Curtains on the Windows and a Souvenir
Cabinet of Chauncey Olcott on the What-Not. The Song was sold at Music
Stores, and the Author was invited out to Private Houses to hear it
Sung, but he was Light on his Feet and Kept Away.

Several Newspapers sent for his Picture, and he was asked to write a
Sunday Article telling how and why he did it. He was asked to Contribute
Verses of the same General Character to various Periodicals. Sometimes
he would get away by himself and read the Thing over again, and shake
his Head and Remark: "Well, if they are Right, then I must be Wrong, but
to me it is Punk."

He had his Likeness printed in Advertisements which told the Public to
read what the Author of "Willie's Good Night" had to say about their
Lithia Water. Some one named