weather comes, the market for Christmas poetry
opens and there's a fairly good demand for voyages in the Polar Seas.
Later on, in the quiet of the autumn I generally write some "Unpublished
Letters from Goethe to Balzac," and that sort of thing.

But it's a wearing occupation, full of disappointments, and needing the
very keenest business instinct to watch every turn of the market.

I am afraid that this is a digression. I only wanted to explain how a
man's mind could be so harassed and overwrought as to make him dream
that he was an editor.

I knew at once in my dream where and what I was. As soon as I saw the
luxury of the surroundings,--the spacious room with its vaulted ceiling,
lit with stained glass,--the beautiful mahogany table at which I sat
writing with a ten-dollar fountain pen, the gift of the
manufacturers,--on embossed stationery, the gift of the embossers,--on
which I was setting down words at eight and a half cents a word and
deliberately picking out short ones through sheer business
acuteness;--as soon as I saw;--this I said to myself--

"I am an editor, and this is my editorial sanctum." Not that I have ever
seen an editor or a sanctum. But I have sent so many manuscripts to so
many editors and received them back with such unfailing promptness, that
the scene before me was as familiar to my eye as if I had been wide
awake.

As I thus mused, revelling in the charm of my surroundings and admiring
the luxurious black alpaca coat and the dainty dickie which I wore,
there was a knock at the door.

A beautiful creature entered. She evidently belonged to the premises,
for she wore no hat and there were white cuffs upon her wrists. She has
that indescribable beauty of effectiveness such as is given to hospital
nurses.

This, I thought to myself, must be my private secretary.

"I hope I don't interrupt you, sir," said the girl.

"My dear child," I answered, speaking in that fatherly way in which an
editor might well address a girl almost young enough to be his wife,
"pray do not mention it. Sit down. You must be fatigued after your
labours of the morning. Let me ring for a club sandwich."

"I came to say, sir," the secretary went on, "that there's a person
downstairs waiting to see you."

My manner changed at once.

"Is he a gentleman or a contributor?" I asked.

"He doesn't look exactly like a gentleman."

"Very good," I said. "He's a contributor for sure. Tell him to wait. Ask
the caretaker