No publisher likes to have his authors
think he is weak in the grammar line.
Miss Rosa Belle Vincent, however, was quite as flustered as I was. She
seemed ill-at-ease and anxious to get away, which I supposed was because
she had not often conversed with publishers who paid a thousand dollars
cash in advance for a manuscript.
She was not at all what I had thought an author would look like. She
didn't even wear glasses. If I had met her on the street I should have
said: "There goes a pretty flip stenographer." She was that kind--big
picture hat and high pompadour.
I was afraid she would try to run the talk into literary lines and Ibsen
and Gorky, where I would have been swamped in a minute, but she didn't,
and, although I had wondered how to break the subject of money when
conversing with one who must be thinking of nobler things, I found she
was less shy when on that subject than when talking about her book.
"Well now," I said, as soon as I had got her seated, "we have decided to
buy this novel of yours. Can you recommend it as a thoroughly
respectable and intellectual production?"
She said she could.
"Haven't you read it?" she asked in some surprise.
"No," I stammered. "At least, not yet. I'm going to as soon as I can
find the requisite leisure.
Pages:
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92