As we walked Mr. McClure continued: “We passed through a suburban town about an hour ago, where one of those other Scotch authors was giving a morning lecture, and, before I knew it, we were in front of the very church in which he was at work. They heard him bleating, and there would have been a regular stampede if it hadn’t been for that dog. He had the leader of them by the throat before you could say ‘bawbee,’ and then he barked and growled and snapped at them, and finally chased the whole pack off the church steps and up the street. I got him of a firm of Edinboro’ publishers, and I am going to have a kennel for him in my New York office and use him in a dozen different ways. Look at him now, will you!”
I glanced around and saw that one of the authors had contrived to detach himself from the drove and was leaning over the fence engrossed in the contemplation of an advertisement of Glenlivet whiskey, which had caught his wandering eye, and as I looked, the dog came hurrying up from behind, nipped him, with a snarl of assumed ferocity, in the calf of his leg, and sent him scampering back to his place with the others.
We were now entering the principal thoroughfare of Syndicate, and the authors looked about in wonder at the silent streets and long rows of neat white cottages in which the literary toilers dwell. From the large brick factory, where the posthumous works of great authors are prepared, came the sound of busy, whirring wheels and the scratching of steam pens. In the art department the sledge-hammers were falling on the anvils in measured cadence—in short, everything told the story of cheerful literary activity. Mr. McClure threw open the door of a large whitewashed building, gave the word of command to the dog, and in less than a minute the sagacious quadruped had rounded up the herd of authors and driven them into their corral.
“Good-by,” said the editor as he closed and bolted the door and turned to take my outstretched hand. “Good-by,” he continued solemnly, and then raised his hands above my head. I took off my hat.
“Now is the time to subscribe,” said Mr. McClure, impressively.
THE CANNING OF PERISHABLE LITERATURE.
Saturday is a half holiday at Mr. McClure’s village of Syndicate. On that day the noon whistle means complete cessation of work, as it always has in every one of the departments of Mr. McClure’s great enterprise.
On the occasion of a recent Saturday visit to this model settlement I found scores of well-fed, happy-looking prosers and poets riding their bicycles up and down the village street or sitting in rows on the fence rails eagerly discussing the condition of the literary market and the business prospects for the coming year. In the large playground which lies to the north of the village an exciting game of football was in progress between two picked elevens, one selected from the various “reminiscence-of-celebrities” gangs employed about the works, and the other made up from the day shift of “two-rhyme-to-the-quatrain” poets.