nsoled him with the suggestion that this was a sure way
of getting his production read. There was already in the city a
considerable body of professional "readers," mostly young men and women,
to whom manuscripts were submitted by the publishers, so that the
author could be sure, if he kept at it long enough, to get a pretty fair
circulation for his story. They were selected because they were good
judges of literature and because they had a keen appreciation of what
the public wanted at the moment. Many of them are overworked, naturally
so, in the mass of manuscripts turned over to their inspection day after
day, and are compelled often to adopt the method of tea-tasters, who
sip but do not swallow, for to drink a cup or two of the decoction would
spoil their taste and impair their judgment, especially on new brands.
Philip liked to imagine, as the weeks passed away--the story is old and
need not be retold here--that at any given hour somebody was reading
him. He did not, however, dwell with much delight upon this process, for
the idea that some unknown Rhadamanthus was sitting in judgment upon
him much more wounded his 'amour propre', and seemed much more like an
invading of his inner, secret life and feeling, than would be an instant
appeal to the general public. Why, he thought, it is just as if I had
shown it to Brad himself--apiece of confidence that he could not
bring himself to. He did not know that Brad himself was a reader for
a well-known house--which had employed him on the strength of his
newspaper notoriety--and that very likely he had already praised the
quality of the work and damned it as lacking "snap."

It was, however, weary waiting, and would have been intolerable if his
duties in the law office had not excluded other thoughts from his mind
a good part of the time. There were days when he almost resolved to
confine himself to the solid and remunerative business of law, and give
up the vague aspirations of authorship. But those vague aspirations
were in the end more enticing than the courts. Common-sense is not an
antidote to the virus of the literary infection when once a young soul
has taken it. In his long walks it was not on the law that Philip
was ruminating, nor was the fame of success in it occupying his mind.
Suppose he could write one book that should touch the heart of the
world. Would he exchange the sweetness of that for the fleeting
reputation of the most brilliant lawyer? In short, he mag