My heart failed me at the thought that if I lost my position I might never get so good a one, and should drag my debt through life. For once thought of you made me cowardly. I answered, “I will write it, Mr. Whitely;” and he said, “I thank you,” as if I had done him a favor.
I told Mr. Blodgett of the incident, that evening, with a wry face and a laugh over my bravery, and he was furious at me.
“Why, you—you”—he stuttered. “Haven’t you learned yet that the man wouldn’t part with you for anything? He’s so stuck up over his editorials and what people say of them that he’d as soon think of discharging his own mother before she weaned him.”
Not content with venting his anger on me, he came into the office the next day and told Mr. Whitely I should not be imposed on, and finally forced him to agree that I should receive whatever the review paid for the article.
After this I wrote several magazine articles for Mr. Whitely, and soon another development of our curious relations occurred. One afternoon he informed me, “The Library trustees request me to deliver an address at the dedication of the building. I shall be grateful for any suggestions you can make of a proper subject.”
“Books?” I replied, with an absolutely grave face.
“That is eminently suitable,” he responded. “Possibly you can spare the time to compose such a paper; and as it should be of a scholarly character some Greek and Latin seem to me advisable.”
“How much?” I asked, inwardly amused to note if he would understand my question, or would suppose it referred to the quantity of dead languages I was to inject.
“What is the labor worth?” he inquired, setting my doubt at rest, and proving his business ability to recognize the most distant allusion to a dollar. When I named a price, he continued: “That is excessive. The profession of authorship is so little recompensed that there are many good writers in New York who would gladly do it for less.”
“I can do it cheaper, if, like them, I crib it from books at the Astor,” I asserted.