at that time, I should have jumped at
it.

But the vacancy did not occur, nor did a steady job; and I employed the
time between odd jobs with writing a twenty-one-thousand-word serial for
the "Youth's Companion." I turned it out and typed it in seven days. I
fancy that was what was the matter with it, for it came back.

It took some time for it to go and come, and in the meantime I tried my
hand at short stories. I sold one to the "Overland Monthly" for five
dollars. The "Black Cat" gave me forty dollars for another. The
"Overland Monthly" offered me seven dollars and a half, pay on
publication, for all the stories I should deliver. I got my bicycle, my
watch, and my father's mackintosh out of pawn and rented a typewriter.
Also, I paid up the bills I owed to the several groceries that allowed me
a small credit. I recall the Portuguese groceryman who never permitted
my bill to go beyond four dollars. Hopkins, another grocer, could not be
budged beyond five dollars.

And just then came the call from the post office to go to work. It
placed me in a most trying predicament. The sixty-five dollars I could
earn regularly every month was a terrible temptation. I couldn't decide
what to do. And I'll never be able to forgive the postmaster of Oakland.
I answered the call, and I talked to him like a man. I frankly told him
the situation. It looked as if I might win out at writing. The chance
was good, but not certain. Now, if he would pass me by and select the
next man on the eligible list and give me a call at the next vacancy--

But he shut me off with: "Then you don't want the position?"

"But I do," I protested. "Don't you see, if you will pass me over this
time--"

"If you want it you will take it," he said coldly.

Happily for me, the cursed brutality of the man made me angry.

"Very well," I said. "I won't take it."

CHAPTER XXVI

Having burned my ship, I plunged into writing. I am afraid I always was
an extremist. Early and late I was at it--writing, typing, studying
grammar, studying writing and all the forms of writing, and studying the
writers who succeeded in order to find out how they succeeded. I managed
on five hours' sleep in the twenty-four, and came pretty close to working
the nineteen waking hours left to me. My light burned till two and three
in the morning, which led a good neighbour woman into a bit of
sentimental Sherlock-Holmes deduction. Never seeing me in the day