“I have a song I would like to have you try over, if you care to.”
The attending publisher hesitates before even extending a form of reception.
“What sort of a song is it?”
“Well, I don’t exactly know. I guess you’d call it a sentimental ballad. If you’d hear it I think you might——”
“We are so over-stocked with songs now, Madam, that I don’t believe there’s much use in our hearing it. Could you come in next Friday? We’ll have more leisure then and can give you more attention.”
The lady looks the failure she has scored, but retreats, leaving the ground clear for the chance arrival of the real author, the individual whose position is attested by one hit or mayhap many. His due is that deference which all publishers, if not the public, feel called upon to render, even if at the time he may have no reigning success.
Whence the Song
“Hello, Frank, how are you? What’s new?”
The author, cane in hand, may know of nothing in particular.