ol--a jewelled
pistol like the one in Dangerfield's hand.

And then--

A loud report, and with a cry, the cry of a woman, one
shrill despairing cry--

Or no, hang it--I can't consent to end up a story in that
fashion, with the dead woman prone across the bed, the
smoking pistol, with a jewel on the hilt, still clasped
in her hand--the red blood welling over the white laces
of her gown--while the two men gaze down upon her cold
face with horror in their eyes. Not a bit. Let's end it
like this:

"A shrill despairing cry--'Ed! Charlie! Come in here
quick! Hurry! The steam coil has blown out a plug! You
two boys quit talking and come in here, for heaven's
sake, and fix it.'" And, indeed, if the reader will look
back he will see there is nothing in the dialogue to
preclude it. He was misled, that's all. I merely said
that Mrs. Dangerfield had left her husband a few days
before. So she had--to do some shopping in New York. She
thought it mean of him to follow her. And I never said
that Mrs. Dangerfield had any connection whatever with
The Woman with whom Marsden was in love. Not at all. He
knew her, of course, because he came from Brick City.
But she had thought he was in Philadelphia, and naturally
she was surprised to see him back in New York. That's
why she exclaimed "Back!" And as a matter of plain fact,
you can't pick up a revolver without its pointing somewhere.
No one said he meant to fire it.

In fact, if the reader will glance back at the dialogue--I
know he has no time to, but if he does--he will see that,
being something of a snoopopath himself, he has invented
the whole story.

III. Foreign Fiction in Imported Instalments.

Serge the Superman: A Russian Novel

(Translated, with a hand pump, out of the original Russian)

SPECIAL EDITORIAL NOTE, OR, FIT OF CONVULSIONS INTO
WHICH AN EDITOR FALLS IN INTRODUCING THIS SORT OF
STORY TO HIS READERS. We need offer no apology to
our readers in presenting to them a Russian novel.
There is no doubt that the future in literature lies
with Russia. The names of Tolstoi, of Turgan-something,
and Dostoi-what-is-it are household words in America.
We may say with certainty that Serge the Superman is
the most distinctly Russian thing produced in years.
The Russian view of life is melancholy and fatalistic.
It is dark with the gloom of the great forests of the
Volga, and saddened with the infinite silence of the
Siberian