“Good. I’m so glad. You know, I believe the New Year’s going to open up a new vein of happiness for us all.”
“We need it. Well, come back and we’ll drink to the healths of Publishers and Sinners.”
It seemed my luck was holding, for I caught Mr. Wedge just as he was leaving the luxurious hotel. I gave my name and stated my business.
“Come in,” said the publisher, leading the way to the gorgeous smoking-room. Mr. Wedge was a blonde, bland man, designed on a system of curves. He was the travelling partner, the entertainer, the upholder of the social end of the business. Immensely popular was Mr. Wedge. Mr. MacWaddy, I afterwards found, was equally the reverse. A meagre little man, spectacled and keen as a steel trap, he was so Scotch that it was said he did not dot his “i’s” in order to save the ink. However, with MacWaddy’s acumen and Wedge’s urbanity, the combination was a happy one.
“Yes,” said the latter affably, offering me a cigar with a gilt band, “we’ll be glad to publish your book, Mr. Madden. By the way, no connection of Madden, the well-known American novelist; writes under the name of Norman Dane?”
“Ye-es—only a distant one.”
“How interesting. Wish you could get him to throw something our way. We’d be awfully glad to show what we could do with his books. They’re just the sort of thing we go in for—light, sensational, easy-to-read novels. He’s a great writer, your cousin—I think you said your cousin?—knows how to hit the public taste. His books may not be literary, but they sell; and that’s how we publishers judge books. Well, I hope you’re going to follow in his footsteps. Seems to run in the family, the fiction gift. By the way, I’d better make out a contract form, and, while I think of it, I’ll give you an advance. Twenty pounds do?”
“You might make it forty, if it’s all the same.”
Mr. Wedge drew his cheque for that amount, and I signed a receipt.
“I’m just going round to the bank,” he continued. “Come with me, and I’ll get the cheque cashed for you.”