THE DAY BEFORE

"Good-morning, Colston. I am in luck, it seems. You have often said that
my commendation of your literary work was mere civility, and here you
find me absorbed--actually merged--in your latest story in the
_Messenger_. Nothing less shocking than your touch upon my shoulder
would have roused me to consciousness."

"The proof is stronger than you seem to know," replied the man
addressed: "so keen is your eagerness to read my story that you are
willing to renounce selfish considerations and forego all the pleasure
that you could get from it."

"I don't understand you," said the other, folding the newspaper that he
held and putting it into his pocket. "You writers are a queer lot,
anyhow. Come, tell me what I have done or omitted in this matter. In
what way does the pleasure that I get, or might get, from your work
depend on me?"

"In many ways. Let me ask you how you would enjoy your breakfast if you
took it in this street car. Suppose the phonograph so perfected as to be
able to give you an entire opera,--singing, orchestration, and all; do
you think you would get much pleasure out of it if you turned it on at
your office during business hours? Do you really care for a serenade by
Schubert when you hear it fiddled by an untimely Italian on a morning
ferryboat? Are you always cocked and primed for enjoyment? Do you keep
every mood on tap, ready to any demand? Let me remind you, sir, that the
story which you have done me the honor to begin as a means of becoming
oblivious to the discomfort of this car is a ghost story!"

"Well?"

"Well! Has the reader no duties corresponding to his privileges? You
have paid five cents for that newspaper. It is yours. You have the right
to read it when and where you will. Much of what is in it is neither
helped nor harmed by time and place and mood; some of it actually
requires to be read at once--while it is fizzing. But my story is not of
that character. It is not 'the very latest advices' from Ghostland. You
are not expected to keep yourself _au courant_ with what is going on in
the realm of spooks. The stuff will keep until you have leisure to put
yourself into the frame of mind appropriate to the sentiment of the
piece--which I respectfully submit that you cannot do in a street car,
even if you are the only passenger. The solitude is not of the right
sort. An author has rights which the reader is bound to respect."

"For specific example?"

"The right to the r