The following advertisement from an English paper, which is vouched for, once more illustrates the truth of the statement that fact is stranger than fiction. The owner of the houses, it may be mentioned, was ill in bed, far away, and the neighbors evidently did not question the right of the men to do as they did. The advertisement is as follows:
LOST.—Three fine cottages have mysteriously disappeared from the property Nos. 296, 298 and 300 High road, Willesden Green, London. Please communicate with J. M. Godwin, 71 Bank Street, London, W. C.
O. Henry told a whimsical tale of what he considered unfair competition in the short story field. He was in the office of a big magazine, when he witnessed the return to a dejected looking young fellow of a couple of manuscripts. "I am sorry for that fellow," said the editor. "He came to New York from New Orleans a year ago, and regularly brings some stories to our office. We can never use them. He doesn't make a dollar by his pen, and he is getting shabby and pale." A month or so later O. Henry saw the same writer in the same office, and the editor was talking to him earnestly. "You had better go back to New Orleans," said that gentleman. "Why?" said the young man. "Some day I may write a story you may want." "But you can do that just as well in New Orleans," said the editor, "and you can save board bills." "Board bills," ejaculated the young man. "What do I care about board bills! I have an income of twenty thousand a year from my father's estate."
LOST.—Three fine cottages have mysteriously disappeared from the property Nos. 296, 298 and 300 High road, Willesden Green, London. Please communicate with J. M. Godwin, 71 Bank Street, London, W. C.
FOOTNOTES:
[J] A mistake, the story appeared in The Blue Book.
[K] Edwards uses a fictitious name for this correspondent.
[L] Now no more as The Cavalier, the former monthly, now a weekly has "absorbed" The Scrap Book.
[M] Mr. Rathborne has recently given up his editorial duties and has retired to what seems to be the ultimate goal of writers and editors—a farm. He is somewhere in New Jersey.