The contributor seemed to pluck up courage.
"What about remuneration"—he faltered.
I waived the question gravely aside. "You will, of course, be duly paid at our usual rate. You receive a cheque two years after publication. It will cover all your necessary expenses, including ink, paper, string, sealing-wax and other incidentals, in addition to which we hope to be able to make you a compensation for your time on a reasonable basis per hour. Good-bye."
He left, and I could hear them throwing him downstairs.
Then I sat down, while my mind was on it, and wrote the advance notice of the story. It ran like this:
NEXT MONTH'S NUMBER OF THE MEGALOMANIA
MAGAZINE WILL CONTAIN A
THRILLING STORY, ENTITLED
"DOROTHEA DASHAWAY, OR, THE
QUICKSANDS OF SOCIETY."
The author has lately leaped into immediate recognition as the greatest master of the short story in the American World. His style has a brio, a poise, a savoir faire, a je ne sais quoi, which stamps all his work with the cachet of literary superiority. The sum paid for the story of Dorothea Dashaway is said to be the largest ever paid for a single MS. Every page palpitates with interest, and at the conclusion of this remarkable narrative the reader lays down the page in utter bewilderment, to turn perhaps to the almost equally marvellous illustration of Messrs. Spiggott and Fawcett's Home Plumbing Device Exposition which adorns the same number of the great review.
I wrote this out, rang the bell, and was just beginning to say to the secretary—
"My dear child,—pray pardon my forgetfulness. You must be famished for lunch. Will you permit me——"
And then I woke up—at the wrong minute, as one always does.