So far I haven’t hit on my novel motif, though I’ve lain awake at nights racking my poor brains. What makes me fret so is that never have I felt such confidence, such power, such hunger to create. I think it must be Paris and the Springtime. The combination makes me dithyrambic with delight. I thrill, I burn, I see life with eyes anointed. Yesterday in the Luxembourg I wrote some verses that weren’t half bad; but writing verses does not make the thorns crackle under the pot, far less supply the savoury soup. Oh, the Idea, the Idea!
To my little band of manuscripts I have never given another thought. But that is my way. I am like a mother cat—when my kittens are young I love them; when they grow to be cats I spit at them. My work finished, I never want to see it again.
One day as I fumed and fussed abominably Lorrimer called.
“Look here, Madden, I don’t know what kind of writing you do, but I suppose you’re not any too beastly rich; you’re not above making an honest dollar. Now, I’m one of the future gold medallists of the Spring Salon, cela va sans dire, but in the meantime I’m not above doing this.”
“This” was a paper covered booklet of a flaming type. I took it with some disfavour. The paper was muddy, the type disreputable, the illustrations lurid. Turning it over I read:
THE MARVELLOUS PENNYWORTH LIBRARY
OF WORLD ADVENTURE.
“Pretty rotten, isn’t it?” said Lorrimer. “Well, you wouldn’t believe it, some of these things sell to nearly quarter of a million. They give the best value for the money in their line. Fifty pages of straight adventure and a dozen spirited illustrations for a humble copper; could you beat it?”
“Well, what’s it got to do with me?”
“It’s like this: I’ve been guilty of the illustrations of two of these masterpieces. They were Wild West stories. Being an American, though I’ve never lived out of Connecticut, I’m supposed to know all about Colorado. Well, it’s the firm of Shortcake & Hammer that publish them, and I happened to meet young Percy Shortcake when he was on a jamboree in Paris. Over the wassail we got free, so he promised to put some work my way. Soon after I got a commission to illustrate Sureshot, or the Scout’s Revenge; then some months after I adorned the pages of Redhand the Nightrider, or the Prowler of the Prairies.”
“I see. What’s the idea now?”