Chapter XXXVIII: Section 8: Thyrsis had waited a week, and then written the second

publisher, and received a reply to the effect that at least two weeks were needed for the consideration of a manuscript. And meantime his last penny was gone, and he was living on Corydon’s money. It was clear that he must earn something at once; and so he had to leave her to study and practice in her own room, while he cudgelled his brains and tormented his soul with hack-work.

He tried his verses again; but he found that the spring had dried up in him. Life was now too sombre a thing, the happy spontaneous jingles came no more. And what he did by main force of will sounded hollow and vapid to him--and must have sounded so to the editors, who sent them back.

Then he tried book-reviewing; but oh, the ghastly farce of book-reviewing! To read futile writing and sham writing of a hundred degrading varieties--and never dare to utter a truth about them! To labor instead to put one’s self in the place of the school-girl reader and the tired shop-clerk reader and the sentimental married-woman reader, and imagine what they would think about the book, and what they would like to have said about it! To take these little pieces of dishonesty to an office, and sit by trembling while they were read, and receive two dollars apiece for them if they were published, and nothing at all if one had been so lacking in cunning as to let the editor think that the book was not worth the space!

However, Thyrsis had cunning enough to earn the cost of his room and his food for two weeks more. Then one day the postman brought him a letter, the inscription of which made his heart give a throb. He ripped the envelope open and read a communication from the second publisher:

“We have been interested in your manuscript, and while we do not feel that we can undertake its publication, we should like an opportunity to talk with you about it.”

“What does _that_ mean?” asked Corydon, trembling.

“God knows,” he answered. “I’ll go and see them this morning.”

When he came back, it was to sink into a chair and stare in front of him with a savage frown. “Don’t ask me!” he said, to Corydon. “Don’t ask!”

“Please tell me!” cried the girl. “Did you see them?”

“Yes,” said Thyrsis--“I saw a fat man!”

“A fat man!”

“Yes--a fat man. A fat body, and a fat mind, and a fat soul.”

“Please tell me, Thyrsis!”

“He said my book wouldn’t sell, because the public had got tired of that sort of thing.”

“That sort of thing!”

“It seems that people used to buy ‘historical romances’, and now they’ve stopped. The man actually thought my book was one of that kind!”

“I see. But then--couldn’t you tell him?”

“I told him. I said, ‘Can’t you see that this book is original--that it’s come out of a man’s heart?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘perhaps. But you can’t expect the public to see it.’ And so there you are!”

Thyrsis sat with his nails dug into his palms. “It’s just like the book-reviews!” he cried. “He knows better, but that doesn’t count--he’s thinking about the public! And he’s got to the point where he doesn’t really care--he’s a fat man!”

“And so he’ll not publish the book?”

“He’ll not have anything more to do with me. He hates me.”

“_Hates_ you?”

“Yes. Because I have faith, and he hasn’t! Because I wouldn’t stoop to the indignity he offered!”

“What did he offer?”

“He says that what the public’s reading now is society novels--stories about up-to-date people who are handsome and successful and rich. They want automobiles and theatre-parties and country-clubs in their novels.”

“But Thyrsis! You don’t know anything about such things!”

“I know. But he said I could find out. And so I could. The point he made was that I’ve got passion and color--I could write a moving love-story! In other words, I could use my ecstasy to describe two society-people mating!”

There was a pause. “And what did you do with the manuscript?” asked Corydon, in a low voice.

“I took it to another publisher,” he answered.

“And what are you going to do now?”

“I’ve been to see the editor of the ‘Treasure Chest.’”

The “Treasure Chest” was a popular magazine of fiction, a copy of which Thyrsis had seen lying upon the table of their landlady. He had glanced through the first story, and had declared to Corydon that if he had a stenographer he could talk such a story at the rate of twenty thousand words a day.

“And did the editor see you?”

“Yes. He’s a big husky ‘advertising man’--he looks like a prize-fighter. He said if I could write, to go ahead and prove it. He pays a cent for five words--a hundred dollars for a complete serial. He pays on acceptance; and he said he’d read a scenario for me. So I’m going to try it.”

“What’s it to be about?” asked Corydon.

“I’m going to try what they call a ‘Zenda’ story,” said Thyrsis. “The editor says the readers of the ‘Treasure Chest’ haven’t got tired of ‘Zenda’ stories.”

And so Thyrsis spent the afternoon and evening wandering about in the park; and sometime after midnight he wrote out his scenario. The advantage of a “Zenda” story was that, as the adventures happened in an imaginary kingdom, there would be no need to study up “local color”. As for the conventional artificial dialect, he could get it from any of the “romances” in the nearby circulating library. He did not dare to take the scenario the next day, but waited a decent interval; and when he returned it was to report that the story was considered to be promising, and that he was to write twenty thousand words for a test.