made no remark of any
kind until Esther began to look at her with some concern. Paul said,
after a moment of sober thought:

"I believe Masters can do something for him out there at Tolchaco. There
is the old Council Hogan out there in the cottonwoods past the 'dobe
flats. Bauer could sleep there. It's about the same as outdoors. And he
could do something perhaps at the trading post to help pay for his
board. I'll write to Masters at once and see what he says. And--I have
another idea that I think will do something. We can't let a fellow like
Bauer go down without doing something and if he objects to being helped,
why, we'll just box him up and ship him out there f. o. b."

After Paul had gone down to the office Mrs. Douglas and Helen continued
the discussion over Walter's letter.

"What other idea does father have to help Mr. Bauer?" asked Helen.

"I don't know unless he is thinking of that precious book of his!" Mrs.
Douglas laughed and Helen joined her.

It had come to be a good natured joke in the Douglas household that
Paul's book was such a great failure that publishers had it listed among
the "six worst sellers" if anyone ever had the courage to print it. He
had put in a tremendous amount of hard work on the volume which was a
bold treatment in original form of the Race Question in America. The
manuscript had been sent to eight different publishers and had been
returned, in three instances with scathing comments.

Paul doggedly clung to his first estimate of the book. Each rejection by
the last publisher only served to increase his faith in what he had
written.

"I tell you, Esther, the publishers don't know a thing. Half the time
their office readers can't spell. They don't know gold from mica schist.
Half the books the publishers put out are dead failures. They don't know
anything more about it than a native of Ponape knows about making an
igloo."

Esther smiled.

"You are naturally a little prejudiced, don't you think? But I don't
blame you. It's lucky for us though, that we don't depend on book sales
for a living. Let's see, how much has the book cost you so far?"

"Well, in typewriting, and postage on returned manuscript it has cost me
about one hundred and fifty dollars," said Paul good naturedly. "But
I'll send it to every publisher in America before I'll give up. I've
written a good book and I know it. And I've made up my mind to one
thing, Esther. When it comes to making terms I'll sell the m