“Well, now,” I said, as soon as I had got her seated, “we have decided to buy this novel of yours. Can you recommend it as a thoroughly respectable and intellectual production?”
She said she could.
“Haven't you read it?” she asked in some surprise.
“No,” I stammered. “At least, not yet. I'm going to as soon as I can find the requisite leisure. You see, we are very busy just now—very busy. But if you can vouch for the story being a first-class article,—something, say, like 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' or 'David Hamm,'—we'll take it.”
“Now you're talking,” she said. “And do I get the check now?”
“Wait,” I said, “not so fast. I have forgotten one thing,” and I saw her face fall. “We want the privilege of publishing the novel under a title of our own, and anonymously. If that is not satisfactory, the deal is off.”
She brightened in a moment.
“It's a go, if that's all,” she said. “Call it whatever you please; and the more anonymous it is, the better it will suit yours truly.” So we settled the matter then and there; and when I gave her our check for a thousand, she said I was all right.
III.
Half an hour after Miss Vincent had left the office, Perkins came in with his arms full of bundles, which he opened, spreading their contents on my desk.