“The magazine editors,” answered Van Sweller, giving me a glance of significant warning.
“But why?” I persisted.
“To please subscribers around Kankakee, Ill.,” said Van Sweller, without hesitation.
“How do you know these things?” I inquired, with sudden suspicion. “You never came into existence until this morning. You are only a character in fiction, anyway. I, myself, created you. How is it possible for you to know anything?”
“Pardon me for referring to it,” said Van Sweller, with a sympathetic smile, “but I have been the hero of hundreds of stories of this kind.”
I felt a slow flush creeping into my face.
“I thought…” I stammered; “I was hoping… that is… Oh, well, of course an absolutely original conception in fiction is impossible in these days.”
“Metropolitan types,” continued Van Sweller, kindly, “do not offer a hold for much originality. I’ve sauntered through every story in pretty much the same way. Now and then the women writers have made me cut some rather strange capers, for a gentleman; but the men generally pass me along from one to another without much change. But never yet, in any story, have I failed to dine at –––– [7].”
“You will fail this time,” I said, emphatically.
“Perhaps so,” admitted Van Sweller, looking out of the window into the street below, “but if so it will be for the first time. The authors all send me there. I fancy that many of them would have liked to accompany me, but for the little matter of the expense.”