"Yes, I do mean to say it," I replied, smiling gloriously.
"But surely you'll finish the letter on the machine."
"I surely will not," said I. "I don't have to work any more. Good-by." And out I marched, or, rather, flew, without waiting to collect three days' pay due me, and resigning a perfectly good fifteen-dollar-a-week job on the first money I ever received for a story!
I did not walk on solid ground, I assure you. I flew on wings that carried me soaring above that Land of Odors, where I had worked for four and a half hard months, right up into the clouds, and every one knows the clouds are near to heaven.
Mr. Hamilton? Oh, yes, I did remember some such person. Let me see. He was the man who thought I was incapable of taking care of myself, and who grandiloquently wanted to "make me over"; who once said I was "ignorant, uncivilized, undisciplined," and would never get anywhere unless I followed his lordly advice. How I laughed inwardly at the thought of the effect upon him of those astounding conquests that I was to make in the charming golden world that was smiling and beckoning to me now.
As soon as I got to my room, I sat down and wrote a letter to him. I wanted him to know right away. In fact, I had a feeling that if he didn't know, then all the pleasure of my triumph might go. This is what I said to him:
Dear Roger:
[Yes, I called him Roger now.]
Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the inclosed thrilling, extraordinary, and absorbing indorsement of
Your abused and forsaken
Nora.
How had he the heart not to answer that letter of mine, I wondered.