ritten into your own
hands. Probably all amateurs feel like that!"

"Manuscripts which our readers pronounce on favorably I always go
through myself before accepting them," Sibley assured his visitor. "But
of course, there are a good many that--er--they don't think worth
bothering me with."

"There's no reason for me to hope that mine will deserve a better
fate," Denin said. "All the same it would--be a great thing for me if
you should bring it out--publish it on both sides of the water. It
isn't as if I expected money for my work. I don't. I shouldn't even
_want_ money. On the contrary--"

Sibley cut him short with a warning. "We're not the sort of publishers
who print books that authors have to bribe us to put on the market. If
a book's worth our while to publish, it's worth our while to pay for it."

Denin laughed. "I wasn't going to suggest any arrangement of that
kind," he apologized. "I'm too poor for such a luxury. I've just come
to New York, third class, and I must 'hustle' to make my living. But I
wrote this on shipboard, while I had the time--"

"You wrote a whole book on shipboard!" exclaimed Sibley.

Denin was taken aback by the publisher's surprise. "Well, it was a slow
boat--twelve days. And my mind was full of this story. I had to write
it. I kept at it night and day. But for all I know there mayn't be
enough to make a book. That would be a bit of a blow! I'm as ignorant
as a child of such things."

"About how many thousand words does your manuscript amount to?" Sibley
asked, glancing at the rather thin brown packet tied with a string.

"I haven't the remotest idea!" Denin admitted. "It didn't occur to me
to count words."

"H'm!" muttered the publisher. "You say it's a story--a novel?"

"It's a sort of a story," its writer explained. "I may as well
mention--you're sure to guess if you glance over my work--that I've
been fighting in France. I was pretty badly knocked out--some months
ago. And you can see from the look of me that I can't be of use as a
soldier while the war lasts, if ever. Otherwise I shouldn't be in New
York now. One doesn't chuck fighting in these days unless one's unfit.
While I was in hospital, I got to thinking how a man might feel in
certain circumstances--(not like my own, of course; but one imagines
things)--and--well, the idea rather took hold of me. Here it is. I
don't expect you to read the thing yourself. It's not likely that--"

"I promise you so much," said Sibley