"And the writers and the writers' friends will rush to buy copies, I suppose, and cut out their letters, and stick them in albums."
He laughed.
"I shouldn't wonder," he said. "Making personal friends for the paper—that's what Mr. Pole calls it. He says that nothing pays better."
"And presently, perhaps, you'll collect all the letters, and put them in a little booklet of which you'll sell large numbers for sixpence in a comfortable dressing-gown of advertisements."
"Possibly," he said, "if it goes really well."
I looked at him for a moment, upon the threshold of his life-work. He was a nice boy, though the shades of Franciscan House were fast closing about him.
"D'you think it's worth it?" I asked him.
"Why rather," he said. "Pays like anything."
"Forty per cent, perhaps?"
"Very likely."