ead up some more. I'm going to get hold of
Saleeby. I still think Spencer is unassailable, and next time I'm going
to take a hand myself."

But Brissenden, breathing painfully, had dropped off to sleep, his chin
buried in a scarf and resting on his sunken chest, his body wrapped in
the long overcoat and shaking to the vibration of the propellers.

CHAPTER XXXVII

The first thing Martin did next morning was to go counter both to
Brissenden's advice and command. "The Shame of the Sun" he wrapped and
mailed to The Acropolis. He believed he could find magazine publication
for it, and he felt that recognition by the magazines would commend him
to the book-publishing houses. "Ephemera" he likewise wrapped and mailed
to a magazine. Despite Brissenden's prejudice against the magazines,
which was a pronounced mania with him, Martin decided that the great poem
should see print. He did not intend, however, to publish it without the
other's permission. His plan was to get it accepted by one of the high
magazines, and, thus armed, again to wrestle with Brissenden for consent.

Martin began, that morning, a story which he had sketched out a number of
weeks before and which ever since had been worrying him with its
insistent clamor to be created. Apparently it was to be a rattling sea
story, a tale of twentieth-century adventure and romance, handling real
characters, in a real world, under real conditions. But beneath the
swing and go of the story was to be something else--something that the
superficial reader would never discern and which, on the other hand,
would not diminish in any way the interest and enjoyment for such a
reader. It was this, and not the mere story, that impelled Martin to
write it. For that matter, it was always the great, universal motif that
suggested plots to him. After having found such a motif, he cast about
for the particular persons and particular location in time and space
wherewith and wherein to utter the universal thing. "Overdue" was the
title he had decided for it, and its length he believed would not be more
than sixty thousand words--a bagatelle for him with his splendid vigor of
production. On this first day he took hold of it with conscious delight
in the mastery of his tools. He no longer worried for fear that the
sharp, cutting edges should slip and mar his work. The long months of
intense application and study had brought their reward. He could now
devote himself w