"'Well, I think I can write,' I answered modestly.
"Then he said he had a third-half-nephew by marriage, to whom, ground under the heel of financial incompetency, he had once loaned the startling sum of fifty dollars,—I say startling, because it startled me to know a preacher ever had that much ready cash ahead of his grocery bill. Anyhow, the third-half-nephew, with the fifty dollars as a nucleus,—I think Providence must have multiplied it a little, for our fifty dollars never accomplished miracles like that,—but with that fifty dollars as a starter he did a little plunging for himself, and is now owner and editor of a great publishing house in Chicago.
"And Mr. Baker, the old minister, kept him going and coming, you might say, by sending him at frequent intervals, bright and budding lights with which to illuminate his publications. It seems the third-half-nephew by marriage, in gratitude for the fifty dollars, never refused a position to any satellite his uncle chose to recommend. And Mr. Baker glowed with delight that he had been able, from the unliterary center of Centerville to send so many candles to shine in the chandelier of Chicago.
"All I had to do was to come.
"As I said before, I came.
"I went out to Mrs. Holly's on Prairie Avenue and the next morning set out for the Carver Publishing Company, and found it, with the assistance of most of the policemen and street-car conductors as well as a large number of ordinary pedestrians encountered between Prairie on the South Side, and Wilson Avenue on the North. I asked for Mr. Carver, and handed him Mr. Baker's letter. He shook hands with me in a melancholy way and said:
"'When do you want to begin? Where do you live?'
"'To-morrow. I have a room out on the south side, but I will move over here to be nearer the office.'
"'Hum,—you'd better wait a while.'
"'Isn't it a permanent position?' I asked suspiciously.