said Mrs. Bell doubtfully.

"Then do you know the AEON MAGAZINE? I know the editor of AEON."

The neighbors and Mrs. Bell looked at each other blankly, and shook
their heads.

Mrs. Smith named ALL the magazines. She had contributed stories to most
of them, but not one was known, even by name, to her inquisitors. One
shy old lady asked faintly if she had ever heard of Mr. Tweed. She
thought she had heard of a Mister Tweed of New York, once.

Then, quite suddenly, Mrs. Smith remembered her own brother, the great
Marriott Nolan Tarbro, whose romances sold in editions of hundreds of
thousands, and who was, beyond all doubt, the greatest living novelist.
Kings had been glad to meet him, and newsboys and gamins ran shouting at
his heels when he walked the streets.

"How silly of me," she said. "You must have heard of my brother,
Marriott Nolan Tarbro, you know, who wrote 'The Marquis of Glenmore' and
'The Train Wreckers'?"

Mrs. Bell coughed apologetically behind her hand.

"I'm not very littery, Mrs. Smith," she said kindly, "but mebby Mrs.
Stein knows of him. Mrs. Stein reads a lot."

Mrs. Stein, whose sole reading was the Bible and such advertising
booklets as came by mail, or as she could pick up on the counter of the
drugstore, when she went to Kilo, moved uneasily. For years she had had
the reputation of being a great reader, and brought face to face with
the sister of an author she feared her reputation was about to fall.

"What say his name was?" she asked.

"Tarbro," said Mrs. Smith, as one would mention Shakespeare or Napoleon.
"Tarbro. Marriott Nolan Tarbro."

"Well," said Mrs. Stein slowly, turning her head on one side and looking
at the spot on the ceiling from which the plaster had fallen, "I won't
say I haven't. And I won't say I have. When a person reads as much as
what I do, she reads so many names they slip out of memory. Just this
minute I don't quite call him to mind. Mighty near, though; I mind a
feller once that peddled notions through here name of Tarbox. Might you
know him?"

"No," said Mrs. Smith, "I haven't the honor."

"I thought mebby you might know him," said Mrs. Stein. "His business
took him 'round considerable, and I thought mebby it might have took him
to New York, and that mebby you might have met him."

Mrs. Bell sighed audibly.

"It's goin' to be an awful trial to Susan if she can't go," she said;
"but I dunno WHAT to say. Seems like I oughtn't to say 'go,' an' yet I
can'