story, was bought by Warren's Monthly for
two hundred and fifty dollars. The Northern Review took his essay, "The
Cradle of Beauty," and Mackintosh's Magazine took "The Palmist"--the poem
he had written to Marian. The editors and readers were back from their
summer vacations, and manuscripts were being handled quickly. But Martin
could not puzzle out what strange whim animated them to this general
acceptance of the things they had persistently rejected for two years.
Nothing of his had been published. He was not known anywhere outside of
Oakland, and in Oakland, with the few who thought they knew him, he was
notorious as a red-shirt and a socialist. So there was no explaining
this sudden acceptability of his wares. It was sheer jugglery of fate.

After it had been refused by a number of magazines, he had taken
Brissenden's rejected advice and started, "The Shame of the Sun" on the
round of publishers. After several refusals, Singletree, Darnley & Co.
accepted it, promising fall publication. When Martin asked for an
advance on royalties, they wrote that such was not their custom, that
books of that nature rarely paid for themselves, and that they doubted if
his book would sell a thousand copies. Martin figured what the book
would earn him on such a sale. Retailed at a dollar, on a royalty of
fifteen per cent, it would bring him one hundred and fifty dollars. He
decided that if he had it to do over again he would confine himself to
fiction. "Adventure," one-fourth as long, had brought him twice as much
from The Millennium. That newspaper paragraph he had read so long ago
had been true, after all. The first-class magazines did not pay on
acceptance, and they paid well. Not two cents a word, but four cents a
word, had The Millennium paid him. And, furthermore, they bought good
stuff, too, for were they not buying his? This last thought he
accompanied with a grin.

He wrote to Singletree, Darnley & Co., offering to sell out his rights in
"The Shame of the Sun" for a hundred dollars, but they did not care to
take the risk. In the meantime he was not in need of money, for several
of his later stories had been accepted and paid for. He actually opened
a bank account, where, without a debt in the world, he had several
hundred dollars to his credit. "Overdue," after having been declined by
a number of magazines, came to rest at the Meredith-Lowell Company.
Martin remembered the five dollars Gertrude had given