March 6. You once said to me that you could conceive of no circumstances that would justify dishonesty; for, no matter what the seeming benefits might be, the indirect consequences and the effect on the misdoer's character more than neutralized them. The wrong I have done has only proved your view, and I have come to scorn myself for the dishonorable part I have played. Yet I think that you would pity more than blame me, if you could but know my sacrifices. I drifted into the fraud unconsciously, and cannot now decide at what point the actual stifling of my conscience began. I suppose the first misstep was when I entered Mr. Whitely's employment; yet though I knew it to be unscrupulous in him to impose my editorials as his own, it still seemed to me no distinct transgression in me to write them for him. With that first act those that followed became possible, and each involved so slight an increase in the moral lapse, and my debt to you was so potent an excuse to blind me, that at the time I truly thought I was doing right. I wonder what you would have done had you been in my position?

Mr. Blodgett's shrewdness in stipulating what work I was to do for Mr. Whitely quickly proved itself. One of the magazines asked my employer to contribute an article on The Future of Journalism. Handing me the letter, he said, "Dr. Hartzmann, kindly write a couple of thousand words on that subject."

"That surely is not part of my duty, Mr. Whitely," I had the courage to respond.

He looked at me quickly, and his mouth stiffened into a straight line. "Does that mean that you do not choose to do it?" he asked suavely.

My heart failed me at the thought that if I lost my position I might never get so good a one, and should drag my debt through life. For once thought of you made me cowardly. I answered, "I will write it, Mr. Whitely;" and he said, "I thank you," as if I had done him a favor.

I told Mr. Blodgett of the incident, that evening, with a wry face and a laugh over my bravery, and he was furious at me.

"Why, you—you"—he stuttered. "Haven't you learned yet that the man wouldn't part with you for anything? He's so stuck up over his editorials and what people say of them that he'd as soon think of discharging his own mother before she weaned him."

Not content with venting his anger on me, he came into the office the next day and told Mr. Whitely I should not be imposed on, and finally forced him to agree that I should receive whatever the review paid for the article.

After this I wrote several magazine articles for Mr. Whitely, and soon another development of our curious relations occurred. One afternoon he informed me, "The Library trustees request me to deliver an address at the dedication of the building. I shall be grateful for any suggestions you can make of a proper subject."

"Books?" I replied, with an absolutely grave face.

"That is eminently suitable," he responded. "Possibly you can spare the time to compose such a paper; and as it should be of a scholarly character some Greek and Latin seem to me advisable."

"How much?" I asked, inwardly amused to note if he would understand my question, or would suppose it referred to the quantity of dead languages I was to inject.

"What is the labor worth?" he inquired, setting my doubt at rest, and proving his business ability to recognize the most distant allusion to a dollar. When I named a price, he continued: "That is excessive. The profession of authorship is so little recompensed that there are many good writers in New York who would gladly do it for less."

"I can do it cheaper, if, like them, I crib it from books at the Astor," I asserted.

"I do not see why an address composed in the Astor Library should not be entirely satisfactory?" he questioned, in his smooth, self-controlled manner.

"Did you never hear of the man who left the theatre in the middle of Hamlet because, he said, he didn't care to hear a play that was all quotations?" I asked, with a touch of irony.

"I presume the story has some connection in your mind with the subject in hand, but I am unable to see the appositeness?" he said interrogatively and evidently puzzled.

"I merely mentioned it lest you might not know that Pope never lived in Grub Street."

He looked at me, still ignorant that I was laughing at him. "You think it injudicious to have it done by Mather?" he questioned, naming a fellow who did special work for the paper at times.

"Not at all," I replied, "provided you label the address 'hash,' so that people who have some discrimination won't suppose you ignorant that it is twice-cooked meat you are giving them," and, turning, I went on with my work as if the matter were ended.

But the next day he told me, "I have concluded to have you compose that oration, Dr. Hartzmann;" and from that moment of petty victory I have not feared my employer.

I wrote the address, and it so pleased Mr. Whitely that, not content with delivering it, he had it handsomely printed, and sent copies to all his friends.

The resulting praise he received clearly whetted his appetite for authorship, for not long after he said to me, "Dr. Hartzmann, you told me, when you sold me this library, that you were writing a history of the Turks. How nearly completed is it?"

"I hope to have it ready for press within three months."

"For some time," he remarked, "I have meditated the writing of a book, and possibly yours will serve my purpose."

I was so taken by surprise that for a moment I merely gazed at him, since it seemed impossible that even egotism so overwhelming as his could be capable of such blindness; but he was in earnest, and I could only revert to Mr. Blodgett's idea that a business man comes to think in time that anything he can buy is his. I smiled, and answered, "My book is not petroleum, Mr. Whitely."

"If it is what I desire, I will amply remunerate you," he offered.

"It is not for sale."

"I presume," he replied, "that you know what disposition of your book suits you best. I have, however, noticed in you a strong desire to obtain money, and I feel sure that we could arrange terms that will bring you more than you would otherwise receive."

Even before Mr. Whitely finished speaking, I realized that I was not a free agent. I owed a debt, and till it was paid I had no right to think of my own ambition or feelings. I caught my breath in anguish at the thought, and then, fearing that my courage would fail me, I spoke hastily: "What do you offer me?"

He smiled blandly as he predicted: "It is hardly a work that will have a large sale. The Turkish nation has not played an important part in history."

"Only conquered the key of the Old World, caused the Crusades, forced the discovery of America and of the Cape passage, compelled Europe to develop its own civilization instead of adopting that of the East, and furnished a question to modern statesmen that they have yet found no Œdipus to answer," I retorted.

"Your special pleading does tend to magnify their position," he assented. "I shall be happy to look the work over, leaving the terms to be decided later."

I am ashamed to confess what a night of suffering I went through, battling with the love and pride that had grown into my heart for my book. I knew from the first moment his proposition had been suggested that he would give me more than I could ever hope to make from the work, and therefore my course was only too plain; but I had a terrible struggle to force myself to carry my manuscript to him the following afternoon.

For the next week he was full of what he was reading; and had the circumstances been different, I could have asked no higher compliment as regards its popular interest than the enthusiasm of this unlettered business man for my book.

"It is quite as diverting as a romance!" he exclaimed. "I can already see how astonished people will be when they read of the far-reaching influence of that nation."

Since the pound of flesh was to be sold, I took advantage of this mood. After much haggling, which irritated and pained me more than it should, Mr. Whitely agreed to give me six thousand dollars and the royalties. Good as the terms were, my heart nearly broke, the day the manuscript left my hands, for I had put so much thought into the book that it had almost become part of myself. My father, too, had toiled over it, with fondest predictions of the fame it would bring me; spending, as it proved, his very life in the endeavor to make it a great work. That his love, that the love of my dear professors, and that my own hopes should all be brought to market and sold as if they were mere merchandise was so mercenary and cruel that at the last moment it was all I could do to bring myself to fulfill the bargain. Nothing but my small progress in paying my debt would have forced me to sell, and I hope nothing but that would have led me to join in such dishonesty. It was, after all, part of the price I was paying for the original wrong, and but just retribution against which I had no right to cry out. Yet for a month I was so sad that I could scarcely go through my day's toil; and though that was a year ago, I have never been able to work with the same vim, life seems to have so little left in it for me. And idle as the thought is, when I think of your praise of the book I cannot help dreaming of what might have been if it had been published in my name; if—Ah, well, to talk of "ifs" is only to confess that I am beaten, and that I will not do. Nor is the fight over. I never hoped nor attempted to gain your love, and that he has won you does not mean failure. To pay my debt is all I have to do, and though I may feel more ill and disheartened than I do to-night, I will pay it, come what may.

Good-night, my darling.

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