$2,600.00 per month Five percent discount if paid before the tenth of the month. Mr. Townsend the owner considers people a fool Who do not at least use gas for fuel. As for lighting he claims it beats electricity As electric storms often cut off the electricity And when you have no light at night And have to burn candles all night. This is hardly right A specially if you have company Who will ask you what is the matter with the electricity. So patronize the Gas Company which storms do not effect And your friends will have no reason to object.
Stella raved over both the poems, but made a very practical suggestion.
“You are cheating yourself, dear,” she said. “The poem about the railroad, for instance, the way you have got it, it is nineteen lines, or nineteen dollars if they really pay a dollar a line. But it would be almost double the amount if you would fix the lines different.”
“How do you mean?”
She got a pencil and piece of paper and showed him:
The Lackawanna Railroad Where does it go? It goes from Jersey City To Buffalo.
“You see,” she said, “you could cut most of the lines in half and make thirty-eight dollars instead of nineteen.”
But Stephen, with one eye on profit and the other on Art, could only increase the lines of “The Lackawanna” from nineteen to thirty and those of “The Gas Business” from seventeen to twenty-one.
Three days later a special delivery came for Stephen.
It said:
Dear Mr. Gale:
On September second there was a poem entitled “To Stella” in the New York Standard. The poem was signed by you. It impressed me greatly and if you have written or will write others as good, our magazine will be glad to buy them, paying you one dollar a line.
Please let me hear from you and send along any poems you may have on hand.
Stephen had never heard of James’s Weekly and did not notice that the letter was postmarked Philadelphia and written on the stationery of a Philadelphia hotel.
He rushed to his house, addressed and mailed the railroad and gas verses, and after a brief and excited conference with Stella, decided to resign his job.
Old Man Townsend, dropping into Maysville the following morning, heard the decision and was not a bit pleased. He realized he never could get anyone else to do Stephen’s work at Stephen’s salary.
“I’ll raise you to twenty-four dollars,” he said.
“I’m not asking for a raise. I’ve got to quit so I can devote all my time to my poetry.”
“Your poetry!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you mean to say you’re going to write poetry for a living?” asked the Old Man.
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll starve to death.”
“Edgar Guest is still alive.”
“I don’t care if he is or not,” said the Old Man. “It’s the twelfth of the month and Hunter can tend to his job and yours both for a couple of weeks. If you want to come back at the end of that time, I’ll raise you to twenty-three dollars.”
It was Stephen’s intention to polish up some of his older poems and write one or two fresh ones so his supply would be ready for “James’s” demand.
But he found it next to impossible to write while the fate of the two verses he had sent in was uncertain and, deciding to leave the old manuscripts as they were, he was able to make only a feeble start on a new one:
The Delaware River.
Not a great many miles from Maysville is the Delaware River But there is no fish in this part of the River. The upper part of the River is narrow and shallow But they claim it is much wider near Philadelphia.
On the twentieth the envelope containing “The Lackawanna Railroad” and “The Gas Business” was returned from New York. There were several inscriptions stamped and written on it, such as “Not Found” and “Not in Directory.”
And it dawned on Stephen that he was the victim of quite a joke.
To the accompaniment of Stella’s sobs, he proceeded to tear up all his manuscripts save “To Stella,” which she had hidden away where he couldn’t find it.
“Mr. Townsend came in on the eight-thirty interurban,” he said. “I’ll have to go see him.”
“All right,” said the Old Man when Stephen walked into the office. “I’ll take you back at your old salary, but don’t let’s have no more foolishness. Get out now and try and coax a little money out of that Harper woman. She ain’t paid a nickel for eight months.”
“I wanted to speak to you about those instantaneous water-heaters,” said Stephen.
“What about them?”
“I was going to advise you not to buy them. They eat up too much gas.”
“Thanks for your advice, but I ordered some from Roberts in Haines City. I told him to send half a dozen of them here,” said the Old Man.
“Will he be here to demonstrate them?” asked Stephen grimly.
“He said he would.”
“I hope he will.”
But even as he spoke, Stephen realized there was nothing he could do about it.
Ex Parte
Most always when a man leaves his wife, there’s no excuse in the world for him. She may have made whoop-whoop-whoopee with the whole ten commandments, but if he shows his disapproval to the extent of walking out on her, he will thereafter be a total stranger to all his friends excepting the two or three bums who will tour the night clubs with him so long as he sticks to his habits of paying for everything.
When a woman leaves her husband, she must have good and sufficient reasons. He drinks all the time, or he runs around, or he doesn’t give her any money, or he uses her as the heavy bag in his home gymnasium work. No more is he invited to his former playmates’ houses for dinner and bridge. He is an outcast just the same as if he had done the deserting. Whichever way it happens, it’s his fault. He can state
