P. S. As expressive of my real feelings, my story will be written in blue ink.
II
Late one evening, six months later, Van Buren rose wearily from his desk, but with a light of triumph in his eye.
"There!" he said. "That is done. 'The City of Credit' is at last un fait accompli. One hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred and sixty-seven words, and all about Newport, with a bit of the life of its thriving suburbs, New York and Boston, thrown in to relieve the sordidness of it all."
He gazed affectionately at the pile of manuscript before him.
"It hasn't been half bad, after all," he said. "The first ten thousand words came like water from a fire hose, the second ten thousand were pure dentistry, tooth-pulling extraordinary, and the rest of it—well, it is queer how when you get interested in shoveling coal how easy it all seems. And now for the hardest end of the job. To find a publisher who is weak-minded enough to print it."
This indeed proved much the hardest part of Van Buren's work, for the reluctance of the large publishing houses of New York and Boston to place their imprint upon the title-page of "The City of Credit" became painfully evident to the youthful author. The manuscript came back to Van Buren with a frequency that was more than ominous.
"I think," he remarked ruefully to himself upon the occasion of its sixth rejection, "that I have discovered the principle of perpetual motion. If there were only enough publishers in the world to last through all eternity, I could keep this manuscript going forever."
Days passed and with no glimmer of hope, until one morning at a time when "The City of Credit" was about due for its thirteenth reappearance on his desk Van Buren found in its stead a letter from Hutchins & Waterbury, of Boston, apprising him of the fact that his novel had been read and was so well liked that "our Mr. Waterbury will be pleased to have Mr. Van Buren call to discuss a possible arrangement under which the firm would be willing to undertake its publication."
"Good Lord!" cried Van Buren as he read the letter over for the third time, even then barely crediting the possibilities of success that now loomed before him. "And Boston people, too! Will I call! Niki, pack my suit-case at once, and engage a seat for me on the Knickerbocker Limited."