Richetti, I have heard, is a marvelous teacher, and there is no better judge of the possibilities of a voice. I am going to interview him and explain the intricacies of the case. Then, I shall tell him that if he sees the slightest chance he will put me under lasting obligation by sending the bills to me, meanwhile, assuring Frances that he is teaching her gratuitously, in order to enhance his reputation by turning out such a consummate artist. She will fall in my snare and be captured by my wiles.
There are various fashions, I have always heard, of causing the demise of a cat. Here is where the shrewd and clever conspirator is going to use the plots of his fiction in real life. I am thankful that my professional training is at last to serve me so well!
CHAPTER XV
THE LIGHTNING STROKE
More days have gone by. This morning I happened to meet Jamieson, who is always exceedingly kind and urbane to his flock of authors.
"My dear fellow," he told me, "you must not be discouraged if the 'Land o' Love' does not sell quite so well as some of the others, for I have not the slightest doubt that your next book will more than make up for it. A man is not a machine and he cannot always maintain the same level of accomplishment. We are only printing a couple of thousand copies to start with, but, of course, your advance payment, on the day of publication, will be the same as usual."
He said all this so pleasantly that I almost forgot that this payment was called for on my contract and felt personally obliged to him.
"We will send you a few advance copies by the end of the week," he said. "It might pay you to look one of them over, carefully. You have not read the thing for a good many months, now, and you will get a better perspective on it. I have no doubt that you will agree with me that a return to your former manner is rather advisable. I am ever so glad to have seen you. Now, don't worry over this because you have not yet written half the good stuff that's in you, and I certainly look forward to a big seller from you, some day."
I shook hands with him, feeling greatly indebted, and walked slowly home. There can be few better judges than Jamieson, and his estimate of the "Land o' Love" leaves me rather blue. I have been so anxious to make money in order to be able to help in the improvement of those repaired vocal chords of Frances and start her on the way towards the success I believe is in store for her, that I feel as if the impending failure of my novel were a vicious blow of fate directed against her. Why was I ever impelled to leave aside some of the conventions of my trade, to abandon the path I have hitherto trodden in safety? One or two multimillionaires may have been able to condemn the public to perdition, but a struggling author might as safely, in broad daylight, throw snowballs at a chief of police. Before I go any further I must carefully read over the seven or eight score pages I have already done for the successor of "Land o' Love," and find out whether I am not drifting into too iconoclastic a way of writing.