The Bread Line: A Story of a Paper

by Albert Bigelow Paine

"But the ones we've already got did," observed Livingstone, gloomily.

"And Frisby got in a thousand dollars the first day after his advertising appeared," remembered Van Dorn.

"Oh, well, that probably meant the second day. I'll bet he didn't count the first day at all. Of course he didn't."

Livingstone suddenly brightened.

"Perhaps that wasn't all the mail; maybe they're bringing the rest of it in a sack."

There was a perceptible revival at this suggestion. Perner even became merry.

"Maybe in pots," he said,—"pots of gold!"

And Van Dorn, looking out of the window, remarked:

"We're like Frisby in one respect, anyway. He didn't have a dollar when his first subscription came—not a dollar!"

But the sack did not appear—nor the pots. Neither did they receive any further subscriptions on that day. By night it was almost impossible to see humor in the situation, which shows that the bohemian spirit must have reached a very low ebb indeed.