We sent a detective to Dillville, Ind., where the author lived; and the report we received was most satisfactory.
The author was a sober, industrious young man, just out of the high school, and bore a first-class reputation for honesty. He had never been in Virginia, where the scene of his story was laid, and they had no library in Dillville; and our detective assured us that the young man was in every way fitted to write a historical novel.
“The Crimson Cord” made an immense success. You can guess how it boomed when I say that, although it was published at a dollar and a half, it was sold by every department store for fifty-four cents, away below cost, just like sugar, or Vandeventer's Baby Food, or Q & Z Corsets, or any other staple. We sold our first edition of five million copies inside of three months, and got out another edition of two million, and a specially illustrated holiday edition, and an “edition de luxe;” and “The Crimson Cord” is still selling in paper-covered cheap edition.
With the royalties received from the after-math and the profit on the book itself, we made—well, Perkins has a country place at Lakewood, and I have my cottage at Newport.
VIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRINCESS OF PILLIWINK
PERKINS slammed the five-o'clock edition of the Chicago “Evening Howl” into the waste-paper basket, and trod it down with the heel of his Go-lightly rubber-sole shoe.
“Rot!” he cried. “Tommy rot! Fiddlesticks! Trash!”
I looked up meekly. I had seldom seen Perkins angry, and I was abashed. He saw my expression of surprise; and, like the great man he is, he smiled sweetly to reassure me.