easy task like putting on a tin suit
and going out on the highway and swatting another potted Sir Bedivere
on the head with an antique ax? The Quest of the Golden Fleece was an
easy stunt alongside of writing a novel these times, and I fear I'm
more of a Jason than a Henry James!"

He turned to his desk, and the next five minutes were devoted to the
writing of an acknowledgment of Miss Tooker's letter.

I thank you for your suggestion [he wrote], and I truly think it will
bear thinking over. Any suggestion that makes for the realization of
my fondest hopes will bear thinking over, and I am going to do what I
can. I wish you had set me an easier task, however, like getting
myself appointed Ambassador to England, or Excise Commissioner, for
honestly I do not feel the call of the pen. Nevertheless, my dearest
Ethel, just to prove to you how honestly devoted to you I am, I shall
to-morrow lay in a stock of pads, a brand new pen, and a new Roosevelt
Dictionary to guide me into the short cut to success via the Reformed
Spelling Route. I have already got my leading characters--my heroine
and my hero. She is the sweetest, fairest, dearest girl in the world,
and is to be named Ethel. The hero is to be a miserable, down-and-out
young cub of a millionaire who, having been brought up in a hot-house
atmosphere, never had a chance when exposed to the chilling blasts of
the world. She, of course, will redeem poor Harry--that is to be my
hero's name--from the pitfalls of bridge, Newport, and the demon Rum.
And, of course, she will marry him in the end.

Ever your devoted
HARRY.

P. S. As expressive of my real feelings, my story will be written in
blue ink.

II

Late one evening, six months later, Van Buren rose wearily from his
desk, but with a light of triumph in his eye.

"There!" he said. "That is done. 'The City of Credit' is at last _un
fait accompli_. One hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred and
sixty-seven words, and all about Newport, with a bit of the life of its
thriving suburbs, New York and Boston, thrown in to relieve the
sordidness of it all."

He gazed affectionately at the pile of manuscript before him.

"It hasn't been half bad, after all," he said. "The first ten thousand
words came like water from a fire hose, the second ten thousand were
pure dentistry, tooth-pulling extraordinary, and the rest of it--well,
it is queer how when you get interested in shoveling coal how easy i