low state of public taste demands a
certain amount of this kind of matter distributed among the advertising.

I rang the bell again.

"Please take this man away and shut him up again. Have them keep a good
eye on him. He's an author."

"Very good, sir," said the secretary.

I called her back for one moment.

"Don't feed him anything," I said.

"No," said the girl.

The manuscript lay before me on the table. It looked bulky. It bore the
title _Dorothy Dacres, or, Only a Clergyman's Daughter_.

I rang the bell again.

"Kindly ask the janitor to step this way."

He came in. I could see from the straight, honest look in his features
that he was a man to be relied upon.

"Jones," I said, "can you read?"

"Yes, sir," he said, "some."

"Very good. I want you to take this manuscript and read it. Read it all
through and then bring it back here."

The janitor took the manuscript and disappeared. I turned to my desk
again and was soon absorbed in arranging a full-page display of
plumbers' furnishings for the advertising. It had occurred to me that by
arranging the picture matter in a neat device with verses from "Home
Sweet Home" running through it in double-leaded old English type, I
could set up a page that would be the delight of all business readers
and make this number of the magazine a conspicuous success. My mind was
so absorbed that I scarcely noticed that over an hour elapsed before the
janitor returned.

"Well, Jones," I said as he entered, "have you read that manuscript?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you find it all right--punctuation good, spelling all correct?"

"Very good indeed, sir."

"And there is, I trust, nothing of what one would call a humorous nature
in it? I want you to answer me quite frankly, Jones,--there is nothing
in it that would raise a smile, or even a laugh, is there?"

"Oh, no, sir," said Jones, "nothing at all."

"And now tell me--for remember that the reputation of our magazine is at
stake--does this story make a decided impression on you? Has it," and
here I cast my eye casually at the latest announcement of a rival
publication, "the kind of _tour de force_ which at once excites you to
the full _qui vive_ and which contains a sustained _brio_ that
palpitates on every page? Answer carefully, Jones, because if it hasn't,
I won't buy it."

"I think it has," he said.

"Very well," I answered; "now bring the author to me."

In the interval of waiting, I hastily ran my eye throug