absolutely succeeded or hopelessly failed. "If you knew how hard it
is to keep that resolve you would be kind, and not ask me again,"
he added.

A little piqued, and yet proud, Bambi reported his decision to the
Professor, and began to turn over in her busy mind a plan to carry the
mountain to Mohammed, if Christmas found the wanderer still obdurate.

XVIII

Jarvis certainly had matriculated in the school of experience, and he
entered in the freshman class. He first wrote a series of articles
dealing with the historical development of the drama. He took them to
the Munsey offices and offered them to Mr. Davis.

"Did you intend these for _Munsey's_ Magazine?"

"Yes. I thought possibly----"

"Ever read a copy of the _Magazine_?"

"No. I think not."

"Well, if you intend to make a business of selling stuff to magazines,
young man, it would pay you to study the market. What you are trying to
do is to unload coal on a sugar merchant. This stuff belongs in the
_Atlantic Monthly_, or some literary magazine."

"Isn't your magazine literary?"

"Certainly not in that sense. We publish a dozen magazines and this kind
of thing doesn't fit any of them. We entertain the public--we rarely
instruct them."

"I see. I'm obliged to you for your trouble. I'll try the _Atlantic_."

"Bring in some stories, light, entertaining stuff with a snap, and we
will take them."

"Thanks! 'Fraid that isn't in my line."

Jarvis went over to the Public Library and deliberately studied the
style of stuff used by the various monthly publications, making notes.

For the next few days he worked all day and a good part of the night on
things he thought he could sell, according to these notes. Then he began
a campaign to peddle them. The _Atlantic_ refused his drama articles,
and he tried them elsewhere, with no success. The other things were
equally a drug on the market. He saved postage by taking them to the
editors' offices himself, and calling for them in ten days or so. He
always found them ready for him. He took a cheaper room, and got down to
one square meal a day. Finally, an opportunity came for him to review
some books for a literary supplement of a newspaper. Confident that his
luck had changed, he proceeded to demolish three out of the four books
assigned to him in the most scathing reviews, whereupon the editor paid
him half price and dismissed him.

The week when things reached the lowest ebb he was summoned by a postal