to life. It was child's play
to him. He knew nothing about editors, but he walked into the office of
the newspaper which he had picked up, and explained his mission.

"We are not looking for new contributors at present," he was told a
little curtly. "What paper have you been on?"

"I have never written anything before in my life," Burton confessed,
"but this is much better than 'London Awake,' which you published a few
evenings ago."

The sub-editor of that newspaper looked at him with kindly contempt.

"'London Awake' was written for us by Rupert Mendosa. We don't get
beginner's stuff like that. I don't think it will be the least use, but
I'll look at your article if you like--quick!"

Burton handed over his copy with calm confidence. It was shockingly
written on odd pieces of paper, pinned together anyhow--an untidy and
extraordinary-looking production. The sub-editor very nearly threw it
contemptuously back. Instead he glanced at it, frowned, read a little
more, and went on reading. When he had finished, he looked at this
strange, thin young man with the pallid cheeks and deep-set eyes, in
something like awe.

"You wrote this yourself?" he asked.

"Certainly, sir," Burton answered. "If it is really worth putting in
your paper and paying for, you can have plenty more."

"But why did you write it?" the editor persisted. "Where did you get
the idea from?"

Burton looked at him in mild-eyed wonder.

"It is just what I see as I pass along," he explained.

The sub-editor was an ambitious literary man himself and he looked
steadfastly away from his visitor, out of the window, his eyes full of
regret, his teeth clenched almost in anger. Just what he saw as he
passed along! What he saw--this common-looking, half-educated little
person, with only the burning eyes and sensitive mouth to redeem him
from utter insignificance! Truly this was a strange finger which opened
the eyes of some and kept sealed the eyelids of others! For fifteen
years this very cultivated gentleman who sat in the sub-editor's chair
and drew his two thousand a year, had driven his pen along the scholarly
way, and all that he had written, beside this untidy-looking document,
had not in it a single germ of the things that count.

"Well?" Burton asked, with ill-concealed eagerness.

The sub-editor was, after all, a man. He set his teeth and came back to
the present.

"My readers will, I am sure, find your little article quite
interesting," h