e was with Ruth. He was only a schoolboy, with a schoolboy's
tongue, when he was in her presence.

"Give me time," he said aloud. "Only give me time."

Time! Time! Time! was his unending plaint.

CHAPTER XIV

It was not because of Olney, but in spite of Ruth, and his love for Ruth,
that he finally decided not to take up Latin. His money meant time.
There was so much that was more important than Latin, so many studies
that clamored with imperious voices. And he must write. He must earn
money. He had had no acceptances. Twoscore of manuscripts were
travelling the endless round of the magazines. How did the others do it?
He spent long hours in the free reading-room, going over what others had
written, studying their work eagerly and critically, comparing it with
his own, and wondering, wondering, about the secret trick they had
discovered which enabled them to sell their work.

He was amazed at the immense amount of printed stuff that was dead. No
light, no life, no color, was shot through it. There was no breath of
life in it, and yet it sold, at two cents a word, twenty dollars a
thousand--the newspaper clipping had said so. He was puzzled by
countless short stories, written lightly and cleverly he confessed, but
without vitality or reality. Life was so strange and wonderful, filled
with an immensity of problems, of dreams, and of heroic toils, and yet
these stories dealt only with the commonplaces of life. He felt the
stress and strain of life, its fevers and sweats and wild
insurgences--surely this was the stuff to write about! He wanted to
glorify the leaders of forlorn hopes, the mad lovers, the giants that
fought under stress and strain, amid terror and tragedy, making life
crackle with the strength of their endeavor. And yet the magazine short
stories seemed intent on glorifying the Mr. Butlers, the sordid dollar-
chasers, and the commonplace little love affairs of commonplace little
men and women. Was it because the editors of the magazines were
commonplace? he demanded. Or were they afraid of life, these writers and
editors and readers?

But his chief trouble was that he did not know any editors or writers.
And not merely did he not know any writers, but he did not know anybody
who had ever attempted to write. There was nobody to tell him, to hint
to him, to give him the least word of advice. He began to doubt that
editors were real men. They seemed cogs in a machine. That was