“Not for worlds,” she replied gravely, ceasing to struggle. “Mr. John Stetson Maxwell called here last night, and he told me of an experience he had when he was an editor, that made me resolve never to speak or act unkindly if I can help it.”
“I am deeply obliged to Mr. Maxwell,” Richard responded lightly.
“But it was very sad, Dick. I felt unhappy all the evening over it.”
“I wish my miseries and wretchedness could have the same influence on you,” he broke in with a laugh.
“Don’t you want to hear the story? I had intended to tell it to you,” she said, half provoked at his lack of seriousness.
“Why, certainly. By all means,” he replied, grave enough now. He never joked when she assumed that tone and look.
“When he was an editor,” she began softly, “he one day received a very bright poem from a man in Buffalo. He did not know the man as a writer, still the poem was so meritorious that he straightway accepted it, and sent a note to the author enclosing a check for the work. A few days afterwards, the man’s card was sent in, with a request for an interview. Mr. Maxwell was very busy at the time, but he thought he would give the man a moment, so he told the boy to bring the visitor up. When he came in, Mr. Maxwell was surprised to see a young man of some twenty-five years. He was not well clad, and was much abashed when he found himself in the presence of such a great personage as the editor, Mr. Maxwell.”
“Rightly, rightly,” Richard said, good naturedly, patting her hands encouragingly.
“Mr. Maxwell recalled afterwards that the young man looked in wretched spirits,” Penelope continued, with a slow smile. “At the time he was too hurried to notice anything, and then editors are used to seeing people who are in ill-luck. He brusquely asked the young man his business, seeing that he made no effort to tell it, and then the young man said he had come to the city and thought he would like to look around the office. Mr. Maxwell rang for a boy, and telling him to show the young man about, shortly dismissed him. In a few days after he received a batch of poetry from the young man, but though of remarkable merit, Mr. Maxwell thought it too sombre in tone for his publication, so he enclosed it with one of the printed slips used for rejected manuscripts. In a day or so Mr. Maxwell was shocked to read of the young man’s death. He had gone out to the park, and sitting down on a bench, beside the lake, put a revolver to his ear and so killed himself. He fell off the bench and into the lake, and his body was not found until the next day. He had a letter in his pocket requesting that his body be cremated. He left enough money to pay the expenses, and word for one of his friends that he could do as he wished with his ashes.”
“Well, many people do the same thing,” Richard said, rather unfeelingly.