ocal appointments to the Railway Mail. You passed
first, didn't you?"

He was compelled to admit that the call had come for him, but that he had
declined it. "I was so sure--I am so sure--of myself," he concluded. "A
year from now I'll be earning more than a dozen men in the Railway Mail.
You wait and see."

"Oh," was all she said, when he finished. She stood up, pulling at her
gloves. "I must go, Martin. Arthur is waiting for me."

He took her in his arms and kissed her, but she proved a passive
sweetheart. There was no tenseness in her body, her arms did not go
around him, and her lips met his without their wonted pressure.

She was angry with him, he concluded, as he returned from the gate. But
why? It was unfortunate that the poundman had gobbled Maria's cows. But
it was only a stroke of fate. Nobody could be blamed for it. Nor did it
enter his head that he could have done aught otherwise than what he had
done. Well, yes, he was to blame a little, was his next thought, for
having refused the call to the Railway Mail. And she had not liked "Wiki-
Wiki."

He turned at the head of the steps to meet the letter-carrier on his
afternoon round. The ever recurrent fever of expectancy assailed Martin
as he took the bundle of long envelopes. One was not long. It was short
and thin, and outside was printed the address of The New York Outview. He
paused in the act of tearing the envelope open. It could not be an
acceptance. He had no manuscripts with that publication. Perhaps--his
heart almost stood still at the--wild thought--perhaps they were ordering
an article from him; but the next instant he dismissed the surmise as
hopelessly impossible.

It was a short, formal letter, signed by the office editor, merely
informing him that an anonymous letter which they had received was
enclosed, and that he could rest assured the Outview's staff never under
any circumstances gave consideration to anonymous correspondence.

The enclosed letter Martin found to be crudely printed by hand. It was a
hotchpotch of illiterate abuse of Martin, and of assertion that the "so-
called Martin Eden" who was selling stories to magazines was no writer at
all, and that in reality he was stealing stories from old magazines,
typing them, and sending them out as his own. The envelope was
postmarked "San Leandro." Martin did not require a second thought to
discover the author. Higginbotham's grammar, Higginbotham's
colloquia