"May 12, 1908.
"Dear Sir:—
Before I have even had time to forward 'The Billionaire's Dilemma' and 'On the Stroke of Four', and to await your other announced stories, a letter comes from one of my German correspondents, saying he had run through your short story: 'The Shadow of the Unknown' and would purchase the rights of translation if you will accept an offer of FORTY DOLLARS.
Perhaps you will say, "such an offer is absurd," but first let me state to you, that the best books placed in GERMANY bring at the most ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS, and oftener anywhere from FIFTY to ONE HUNDRED, that the chief profit, is not a monetary one, rather the spreading of the writer's name and fame.
'The Shadow of the Unknown,' writes the publisher, is a very short story, and if you will be guided by my long experience, dear Sir, you will accept the offer, in order to make our name popular and facilitate a better sale of your following stories, which I shall take double pleasure in forwarding, feeling surer of a good offer.
Were I guilty of business indiscretion, you would be surprised to know the names of the already published 'BOOKS' I have sold and am daily selling the GERMAN rights of, for hardly a monetary consideration at all, and yet the literary satisfaction quite out-balances all other considerations, does it not?
I enclose the customary form of assignment, which you can sign and have duly witnessed by a NOTARY PUBLIC, if you see fit to accept the offer, and which you will please then send me per AMERICAN EXPRESS C. O. D. subject to examination to avoid every possible chance of error.
The personal receipt need not be signed before the NOTARY PUBLIC, your signature without witness suffices.
Hoping to do much better for you with your other fine stories and appreciating your confidence, I remain, dear Sir,
Very truly yours,
"EUGENE NIEMANN."
After the dust had settled, and the invasion was finally completed, $40 had been added to the year's receipts of the Fiction Factory; but Edwards clings to the hope that some day more of his "fine stories" may be greedily bought by the German publishers. These German publishers are honorable enough to buy, where they might pirate, and there are a few American publishers who might take lessons from them in business probity. With a small tidbit from a letter of May 18, the pleasant Mr. Niemann will be dismissed:
"Later, with your permission, I will take up the stories I sell in GERMANY for sale in FRANCE, DENMARK, NORWAY and SWEDEN?
The monetary remuneration in the SCANDINAVIAN countries is yet smaller than in GERMANY, but the people are fine readers, and that for all, who truly LOVE their ART is the chief standpoint I take it?!"
During the latter part of July and the earlier part of August Edwards was in New York for a couple of weeks. As usual when in the city he worked even harder than he did at home. Two nickel novels were written, a serial was put through the Factory for Mr. Davis, and he collected $200 for a novelette which he sold to People's. There was an interesting, almost a humorous, circumstance connected with the serial.
Edwards called the story "The Man Who Left." When the manuscript was completed he took it in to Mr. Davis, and two or three days later called again to learn its fate.
The Munsey offices are up close to the roof in the Flatiron building. The lair of the editor who presides over the destinies of The All-Story Magazine, The Railroad Man's Magazine and The Scrap Book[L] is flanked on one side by a prospect of space that causes the occasional caller to hang on to his chair. Across from this dizzy void is a partition hung with framed photographs of contributors—a rogues' gallery in which Edwards, when he last saw the collection, had a prominent place. North of an imaginary line drawn between the window and the partition sits the editor, grimly prominent against a motto-covered wall. As the caller faces the editor he is, of course, confronted by placards reminding him that "This is My Busy Day—Cut it Short," and "Find A Man for the Job not A Job for the Man," and others cunningly calculated to put him on tenterhooks.
To this place, therefore, came Edwards, proffering inquiries about "The Man Who Left." He read fateful things in the august countenance, and he was not surprised when Mr. Davis handed him a lemon, but he was surprised when he took the lemon back.
"Rotten," said Mr. Davis, "r-r-rotten! When I'm out for peaches, Edwards, I side-step the under-ripe persimmons. 'The Man Who Left' ought to have made his get-away along about line one, paragraph one, chapter one; and then if he had staid out plumb to the place where you have written 'Finis' this gorgeous but unconvincing tale would have been vastly improved. Am I a Jasper that you seek thus to inveigle me into purchasing a gold-brick? Here, take it away! Now let me have it again. I am going to give you three hundred for it and tuck it away in the strong-box. Later you are to evolve, write and otherwise put upon paper a fictional prize for which 'The Man Who Left' will be returned to you in even exchange. Do you get me? 'Nuff said. I think you're out of mazuma, and that's why I'm doing this. My friends'll ruin me yet!"
Now the humor, if there is any, fits in about here: Edwards went back to Michigan and wrote a serial which he sent on to replace "The Man Who Left." Here is the letter in reply: