she cannot break; place her in situations that leave her no
escape."

Roseleaf shook his head.

"I am afraid I never shall be able to do it," he said.

"Pshaw! Don't talk of failure at this stage of the game. All you have to
do is to introduce upon the scene a thoroughly unprincipled man of good
address, who is fertile in expedients. You will find your model for that
among a dozen of your acquaintances. Why, take Archie Weil, and hold him
in your mind till you are saturated with him."

What did Mr. Gouger mean? That Mr. Weil would actually do these dreadful
things, would in his own person perpetrate the outrage of winning a pure
girl to shame. It seemed childish to ask such a question, and yet such a
meaning could easily be taken from what the critic had said. No, no! All
he could have meant was that Mr. Weil might serve as a figure on which
to lay these sins--that he could be carried in the writer's mind, as a
costumer uses a stuffed frame to hang garments on while in the process
of manufacture.

"Then there is Boggs," added Gouger, with a laugh. "You ought to find
some place for a fellow like him, if only for the comic parts of your
novel, and there must be a little humor in a book that is to suit the
mass. A writer for a magazine said recently with much truth, 'He who
would hit the popular taste must aim low.' I think Boggs could furnish
the cheap fun for an ordinary novel, without too great a wear on the
writer. Go ahead, my boy. Write a half dozen chapters in your own
idyllic way, and then get Archie to take you to a few places where your
mind will be turned to opposite scenes. It takes all sorts of edibles to
suit the modern palate."

So Roseleaf wrote, slowly, patiently, with devotion to his art, until he
had completed five chapters of his story. And Gouger read it and went
into ecstacies, declaring it the best foundation he had ever seen for a
most entrancing romance.

"He has wrought his people up to such a superlative height," said the
critic to Mr. Weil, "that the _chute_ will be simply tremendous! How
simply, how elegantly his sentences flow! If he can handle the necessary
wickedness that must follow, the sale of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' or 'Thou
Shalt Not,' will be eclipsed without the least doubt. But, the question
still is, _can_ he?"

"There's no such question," was the response. "He must, that's the way
to put it. Confound it, he shall! And the next thing for him to do is
to take a few visits wit