“But I don't read a book in five years!” I exclaimed. “I don't know anything about books. I don't know where to get a novel.”
“Advertise!” he exclaimed. “Advertise! You can get anything, from an apron to an ancestor, if you advertise for it. Offer a prize—offer a thousand dollars for the best novel. There must be thousands of novels not in use.”
Perkins was right. I advertised as he suggested, and learned that there were thousands of novels not in use. They came to us by basketfuls and cartloads. We had novels of all kinds,—historical and hysterical, humorous and numerous, but particularly numerous. You would be surprised to learn how many ready-made novels can be had on short notice. It beats quick lunch. And most of them are equally indigestible. I read one or two, but I was no judge of novels. Perkins suggested that we draw lots to see which we should use.
It really made little difference what the story was about. “The Crimson Cord” fits almost any kind of a book. It is a nice, non-committal sort of title, and might mean the guilt that bound two sinners, or the tie of affection that binds lovers, or a blood relationship, or it might be a mystification title with nothing in the book about it.
But the choice settled itself. One morning a manuscript arrived that was tied with a piece of red twine, and we chose that one for good luck because of the twine. Perkins said that was a sufficient excuse for the title, too. We would publish the book anonymously, and let it be known that the only clue to the writer was the crimson cord with which the manuscript was tied when we received it. It would be a first-class advertisement.
Perkins, however, was not much interested in the story, and he left me to settle the details. I wrote to the author asking him to call, and he turned out to be a young woman.
Our interview was rather shy. I was a little doubtful about the proper way to talk to a real author, being purely a Chicagoan myself; and I had an idea that, while my usual vocabulary was good enough for business purposes, it might be too easy-going to impress a literary person properly, and in trying to talk up to her standard I had to be very careful in my choice of words. No publisher likes to have his authors think he is weak in the grammar line.
Miss Rosa Belle Vincent, however, was quite as flustered as I was. She seemed ill at ease and anxious to get away, which I supposed was because she had not often conversed with publishers who paid a thousand dollars cash in advance for a manuscript.
She was not at all what I had thought an author would look like. She didn't even wear glasses. If I had met her on the street I should have said, “There goes a pretty flip stenographer.” She was that kind—big picture hat and high pompadour.
I was afraid she would try to run the talk into literary lines and Ibsen and Gorky, where I would have been swamped in a minute, but she didn't; and, although I had wondered how to break the subject of money when conversing with one who must be thinking of nobler things, I found she was less shy when on that subject than when talking about her book.