n to the trail and hit an Indian in the back with
almost fatal consequences.

H. To HIM, or to the Indian?

C. She didn't say which it was.

H. (WITH A SIGH). It certainly beats the band! You don't know HER, you
don't know her literature, you don't know who got hurt when the blast
went off, you don't know a single thing for us to build an estimate of
her book upon, so far as I--

C. I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her uncle.

H. Oh, what use is HE? Did you know him long? How long was it?

C. Well, I don't know that I really knew him, but I must have met him,
anyway. I think it was that way; you can't tell about these things, you
know, except when they are recent.

H. Recent? When was all this?

C. Sixteen years ago.

H. What a basis to judge a book upon! As first you said you knew him,
and now you don't know whether you did or not.

C. Oh yes, I know him; anyway, I think I thought I did; I'm perfectly
certain of it.

H. What makes you think you thought you knew him?

C. Why, she says I did, herself.

H. SHE says so!

C. Yes, she does, and I DID know him, too, though I don't remember it
now.

H. Come--how can you know it when you don't remember it.

C. _I_ don't know. That is, I don't know the process, but I DO know
lots of things that I don't remember, and remember lots of things that I
don't know. It's so with every educated person.

H. (AFTER A PAUSE). Is your time valuable?

C. No--well, not very.

H. Mine is.

So I came away then, because he was looking tired. Overwork, I reckon; I
never do that; I have seen the evil effects of it. My mother was always
afraid I would overwork myself, but I never did.

Dear madam, you see how it would happen if I went there. He would ask
me those questions, and I would try to answer them to suit him, and he
would hunt me here and there and yonder and get me embarrassed more
and more all the time, and at last he would look tired on account of
overwork, and there it would end and nothing done. I wish I could be
useful to you, but, you see, they do not care for uncles or any of those
things; it doesn't move them, it doesn't have the least effect, they
don't care for anything but the literature itself, and they as good as
despise influence. But they do care for books, and are eager to get them
and examine them, no matter whence they come, nor from whose pen. If you
will send yours to a publisher--any publisher--he will certainly examine
it, I can assure