could forget it. I'll confess more than that, the story has been
'declined with thanks' by every decent magazine in the States and in
England. Now perhaps some one will tell me why."

"I don't know the answer," said the Youngster, seriously, "unless it
is 'why not?'"

"I shouldn't wonder if it were sentimental twaddle," sighed the
Journalist, "but I don't _know_."

"I noticed," expostulated the Critic, "that you all listened,
enthralled."

"Oh," replied the Doctor, "that was a tribute to your personal charm.
You did it very well."

"Exactly," said the Critic, "if editors would let me read them my
stories, I could sell them like hot cakes. I never believed that Homer
would have lived as long as he has, if he had not made the reputation
of his tales by singing them centuries before any one tried to read
them. Now no one _dares_ to say they bore him. The reading public, and
the editors who cater to it, are just like some stupid theatrical
managers I know of, who will never let an author read a play to them
for fear that he may give the play some charm that the fool theatrical
man might not have felt from mere type-written words on white or
yellow paper. By Jove, I know the case of a manager who once bought
the option on a foreign play from a scenario provided by a clever
friend of mine--and paid a stiff price for it, too, and when he got
the manuscript wrote to the chap who did the scenario--'Play
dashety-dashed rot. If it had been as good as your scenario, it would
have gone.' And, what is more, he sacrificed the tidy five thousand he
had paid, and let his option slide. Now, when the fellow who did the
scenario wrote: 'If you found anything in the scenario that you did
not discover in the play, it is because I gave you the effect it would
have behind the footlights, which you have not the imagination to see
in the printed words,' the Manager only replied 'You are a nice chap.
I like you very much, but you are a blanketty-blanketty fool.'"

"Which was right?" asked the Journalist.

"The scenario man."

"How do you know?"

"How do I know? Why simply because the play was produced later--ran
five years, and drew a couple of million dollars. That's how I know."

"By cricky," exclaimed the Youngster, "I believe he thinks his story
could earn a million if it had a chance."

"I don't say 'no,'" said the Critic, yawning, "but it will never get a
chance. I burned the manuscript this morning, and now being delivered