Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/168

read the manuscript of his story aloud, Janet handed him her venture, with some trepidation. At first he seemed a little nettled that she should have done such a thing.

"Look here, monk," he said, "you oughtn't to wear yourself out trying to write. You have quite enough to do with the house and the baby. Moreover, you don't know how discouraging it is. It takes years of patient apprenticeship before one can get anything across with the editors. This is my job, brownie."

"But I enjoyed doing it," she said.

"That's a bad sign. All really good stories take fearful effort. How long did you spend on this?"

"Oh, quite a while," she said, vaguely. She did not like to admit that her little story had involved no "patient apprenticeship."

He lit his pipe and began reading the sheets on which her quick pencil had flashed with such enthusiasm. She sat with her sewing, watching him shyly.

"Very nice," was his comment; but privately he wondered how he was to avoid hurting her feelings. It seemed to him that the story had all the faults of the amateur.

"Would you submit it anywhere?" she asked, eagerly. "Do you think any magazine would buy it?"