t longer
than is absolutely necessary. Would you like to have all the questions
at once, or would you rather study them one after another?"

He said he thought he could better give an undivided mind to each if he
had them one at a time, and so we began with the first:

"'1. Would you advise the young story-writer to study the old masters in
literature or the stories in the current magazines, in order to meet the
demands of the current editors?'"

"Will you read that again?" the author prominently before the public
demanded, but when we had read it a second time it seemed only to plunge
him deeper into despair. He clutched his revered head with both hands,
and but for an opportune baldness would probably have torn his hair. He
murmured, huskily, "Do you think you have got it right?"

We avoided the response "Sure thing" by an appropriate circumlocution,
and then he thundered back: "How in--nature--is a young writer to
forecast the demands of current editors? If an editor is worth his
salt--his Attic salt--he does not know himself what he wants, except by
the eternal yearning of the editorial soul for something new and good.
If he has any other demands, he is not a current editor, he is a
stagnant editor. Is it possible that there is a superstition to the
contrary?"

"Apparently."

"Then that would account for many things. But go on."

"Go on yourself. You have not answered the question."

"Oh, by all means," the author sardonically answered; "if the current
editor has demands beyond freshness and goodness, let the young writer
avoid the masters in literature and study the stories in the current
magazines."

"You are not treating the matter seriously," we expostulated.

"Yes, I am--seriously, sadly, even tragically. I could not have imagined
a condition of things so bad, even with the results all round us. Let us
have the second question of your correspondent."

"Here it is: '2. Has the unknown writer an equal chance with the
well-known author, provided his work is up to the standard of the
latter's?'"

"Of the latter's?--of the latter's?--of the latter's?" Our friend
whispered the phrase to himself before he groaned out: "What a frightful
locution! Really, really, it is more than I can bear!"

"For the cause you ought to bear anything. What do you really think?"

"Why, if the former's work is as good as the latter's, why isn't the
former's chance as good if the current editor's demands are for the same