at compelled him to write about
the things he knew. He knew whaling, and out of the real materials of
his knowledge he proceeded to manufacture the fictitious adventures of
the two boys he intended to use as joint heroes. It was easy work, he
decided on Saturday evening. He had completed on that day the first
instalment of three thousand words--much to the amusement of Jim, and to
the open derision of Mr. Higginbotham, who sneered throughout meal-time
at the "litery" person they had discovered in the family.

Martin contented himself by picturing his brother-in-law's surprise on
Sunday morning when he opened his Examiner and saw the article on the
treasure-hunters. Early that morning he was out himself to the front
door, nervously racing through the many-sheeted newspaper. He went
through it a second time, very carefully, then folded it up and left it
where he had found it. He was glad he had not told any one about his
article. On second thought he concluded that he had been wrong about the
speed with which things found their way into newspaper columns. Besides,
there had not been any news value in his article, and most likely the
editor would write to him about it first.

After breakfast he went on with his serial. The words flowed from his
pen, though he broke off from the writing frequently to look up
definitions in the dictionary or to refer to the rhetoric. He often read
or re-read a chapter at a time, during such pauses; and he consoled
himself that while he was not writing the great things he felt to be in
him, he was learning composition, at any rate, and training himself to
shape up and express his thoughts. He toiled on till dark, when he went
out to the reading-room and explored magazines and weeklies until the
place closed at ten o'clock. This was his programme for a week. Each
day he did three thousand words, and each evening he puzzled his way
through the magazines, taking note of the stories, articles, and poems
that editors saw fit to publish. One thing was certain: What these
multitudinous writers did he could do, and only give him time and he
would do what they could not do. He was cheered to read in Book News, in
a paragraph on the payment of magazine writers, not that Rudyard Kipling
received a dollar per word, but that the minimum rate paid by first-class
magazines was two cents a word. The Youth's Companion was certainly
first class, and at that rate the three thousand words he had