The Earl of Rigby, who had been hanging over the vestibule rail of the observation car, swung himself lightly down and cordially grasped his son's hand. The Honorable Arthur was struck afresh by the good looks and youthfulness of his aristocratic father.
"By Jove, Arthur, I'm glad to see you got my telegram, and I'm glad you got here in time. What? No, you won't need your portmanteau. The truth is," he gave an infectious laugh, "the Countess of Rigby—she was Miss Lily Ogden until last night, my deah boy—and I are on our way to England, and we couldn't leave the country without seeing you again. Won't you step into the coach and speak to her?"
[GEORGE LEE BURTON]
George Lee Burton, magazinest, was born at Danville, Kentucky, April 17, 1868. He was fitted at the Louisville Rugby School for the University of Virginia, from which he was graduated, after which he returned to Louisville, and studied law in the University of Louisville. Upon his graduation from that institution he was admitted to the bar, and he has since practiced his profession at Louisville with success. Mr. Burton began to write some years ago, contributing short-stories and sketches to the eastern periodicals. The Century published his clever story, As Seen By His Bride; and Ainslee's Magazine printed his The Training of the Groom, The Deferred Proposal, Cupid's Impromptu, and several other stories. His work for The Saturday Evening Post, however, has been his most noteworthy performance. For that great weekly he has written: Getting a Start at Sixty (published anonymously); The Making of a Small Capitalist, A Fresh Grip, A Rebuilt Life, and Tackling Matrimony, the last of which titles appeared in two parts in The Post for November 23 and November 30, 1912, was exceedingly well done. He has recently re-written Tackling Matrimony, greatly developing the story-part, and more than doubling its length, for the Harper's, who will issue it in book form early in the spring of 1913. Mr. Burton is a bachelor who has won wide reputation as a writer upon various phases of matrimonial mixups. He also has a certain sympathy with those who waste their youth in riotous living, but who win their true positions in the world after all seems lost.
Bibliography. Letters from Mr. Burton to the Author; Outing (May, 1900).
AFTER PRISON—HOME[55]
[From A Rebuilt Life (Saturday Evening Post, March 23, 1912)]
"Well, sir, when I got out I was shipped back to my own town, or rather the town from which I had been sent up. I was born five hundred miles from there; but my people had died when I was young and I had drifted in there when I was only sixteen years old—I guess that makes it my town after all. Now, at thirty-five I was back there from the pen and I stayed there.
"Maybe that was a mistake. I guess it was harder for me; but I had that much fight left in me. I wanted to show people that there was still some man in me, even if I had spent ten years in the pen that I deserved to spend there. Besides, I wouldn't like to start off fresh in a new place and build up a little, and just as I got to going have somebody from my home town come along and tell everybody that respected me that I was a murderer and an ex-convict and a lowdown sort of nobody.