“The idea is that you write one of these things and I illustrate it.”
“My dear fellow, you have too high an opinion of my powers.”
“Oh, come now, Madden, try. You won’t throw me down, old man. I need the money. Supposing we place it we’ll get a ten pound note for it; that will be seven for you and three for me. Three pounds, man, that will keep me for a month, give me time to finish my prize picture for the Salon. Just think what it means to me, what a crisis in my fortunes. Fame there ready to crown me, and for the want of a measly three quid, biff! there she chucks her crown back in the laurel bin for another year. Oh, Madden, try. I’m sure you could rise to the occasion.”
Thus approached, how could a kind-hearted Irishman refuse? Already I saw Lorrimer gold-medalled, glorified; then the reverse of the picture, Lorrimer writhing in the clutches of dissipation and despair. Could I desert him? I yielded.
“Good!” whooped Lorrimer; “we’ll make a best-seller in Penny-dreadfuldom. Take Sureshot here as a model. Here, too, are your illustrations.”
“My what?”
“The pictures. Oh, yes, I did them first. It doesn’t make any difference, you can make them fit in. It’s often done that way. Half the books published for Christmas sale are written up to illustrations that the publishers have on hand.”
“All right. The illustrations may suggest the story.”
Lorrimer went away exultant. After all, I thought, seven pounds won’t be bad for a week’s work. So I read Sureshot with some care. It was divided into twenty chapters of about a thousand words each, and every chapter finished on a situation of suspense. The sentences were jerkily short; each was full of pith and punch, and often had a paragraph all to itself. For example:
By one hand Sureshot clung to that creaking bough. Below him was empty space. Above him leered his foe, Poisoned Pup, black hate in his face.