"Your immediate prospect holds nothing in sight save the weary parcel postman, with his bent form, delivering daily at your door eleven-pound packages of unappreciated sonnets. You do not dare think on the morrow, what ye shall eat, and wherewithal shall ye be clothed, because no man liveth who can purchase the necessities of life with rejection slips—those checks on the Banks of Ambition, payable in the editors' regrets."
"By George," blurted the Poet feelingly, "you're dead right about that, old man. If editors' regrets were legal tender, I could pay off the national debt."
"Precisely," said the Idiot. "And it is just here, my dear friend, that the U. S. Telephonic Aid Society rushes to your assistance. Your case is brought to the society's attention, and I, as President, Secretary, Treasurer, and General Manager of the institution, look into the matter at once.
"I find your work meritorious. No editor has ever rejected it because it lacked literary merit. He even goes so far as to print a statement of that fact upon the slip he sends back with it on its homeward journey. Like most other poets you need a little food once in awhile. A roof to cover your head is essential to your health, and under the existing laws of society you simply must wear clothes when you appear in public, and it becomes the Society's worthy job to aid you in getting all these things.
"So we close a contract providing that for ten dollars down and fifteen per cent. of the gross future receipts, I, or the Society, agree to secure the publication of your sonnets, rondeaux, limericks, and triolets in the Hyperion Magazine."
"That would be bully if you could only pull it off," said the Poet, falling naturally into the terminology of Milton. "But I don't just see how you're going to turn the trick."
"On the regular 'Damon and Pythias' principle, as set forth in the newspapers," said the Idiot. "Immediately the contract between us is signed, I rush to the nearest pay station and ring up the editor of the Hyperion Magazine, and when I get him on the line we converse as follows:
"Me—Is this the editor of the Hyperion Magazine?
"Editor—Ubetcha. Who are you?
"Me—I'm President Wilson, down at the White House.