"Well," replied the self-confident man, "it proved beyond all doubt that it isn't one of these trashy best-sellers."
The late Ambassador Walter Hines Page was formerly editor of The World's Work and, like all editors, was obliged to refuse a great many stories. A lady once wrote him:
"Sir: you sent back last week a story of mine. I know that you did not read the story, for as a test I had pasted together pages 18, 19, and 20, and the story came back with these pages still pasted; and so I know you are a fraud and turn down stories without reading same."
Mr. Page wrote back:
"Madame: At breakfast when I open an egg I don't have to eat the whole egg to discover it is bad."
The great novelist summoned his publisher to his luxurious home.
"Have your salesmen," he asked, "prepared for their semi-annual trip among the down-trodden booksellers?"
"They have."