ht in a relaxed manner so that he could express himself on
paper. In no time at all, he had written what was to be his first,
sensational, best-selling shocker, _Naked Bellies in the Grass_."

"That does sound sensational."

"Not for snakes. He neglected to mention his characters were snakes. _I
Fang You Very Much_ followed swiftly afterward and was just as
successful. Mothers were amused with its lispy title and got it for the
children."

"Sounds like a story with some meat in it."

"Yes! Something you can get your teeth into. However, his next offering,
_A Snake Pit Full of Love_, was by far the topper. It was banned in
Boston."

"You haven't mentioned anything tragic so far," she observed. "In fact,
you have made a pot of money."

"Right. After my snake had filed his income tax returns, we still had
enough money to purchase this house and to support us for a couple of
years. The only trouble is, his royalties have stopped coming in and
that money is all used up. I still haven't been able to sell any of my
landscape paintings. So we haven't any income, and that's why you and I
can't marry for a long time yet--if ever!"

Her exquisite brows wrinkled with concentration. "I don't understand.
Has Droozle written himself out?"

"Far from it," answered Jean, seating himself and parking Droozle on his
knee. "He's writing more than ever."

"The quality is gone, then?"

Jean shook his head. "No, he's writing superlatively."

"Then what _is_ the problem?" she asked, now thoroughly mystified.

"He's writing classics!" burst out Jean in baffled irritation. "He won't
write anything else! Easily seeing the approaching catastrophe, I wrote
long persuading essays to him. It was pathetically useless. Proudly he
continued to write his _Rise and Fall of the Western Plainsman_ in a
lucid, passionate prose which would evoke an imperishable picture--but
in three thousand pages."

"I think classics are _nice_," protested Judy, "and one of these days
I'm going to read another one."

Huskily Jean told her the worst. "Writing classics consumes paper by the
ton. And if you ever get your 750,000 word story finished, you must then
start shrinking it back to an acceptable 75,000 words. This is a nearly
hopeless task. Of course if you can get it back to 75,000 words the
digest magazines will have no trouble shrinking it to 15,000 words or
fifteen pictures, and you then get your fingers in the till." He paused
and all hope fled fro