Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/169

He evaded the question. "Would you like me to type it for you?" he said.

"Oh, would you?"

"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said, "I'll be sending my manuscript to Mr. Edwards to-morrow. I'll type yours and send it, too."

Janet was delighted, and she fell asleep that night with the sweet music of the thumping keys in her ears. As she heard the staccato clicking, she thought: "I wonder how far he has got now? How good of him to take all that trouble to copy my poor little story."

Hemming sat up very late that night, copying Janet's manuscript and planning what to say to Mr. Edwards, the editor of the Colonial Magazine, who had been very cordial to him. He resisted the temptation to alter Janet's naïve phrasing here and there, to improve her technique by recasting some of the situations in her story. It was long past midnight when both manuscripts were ready to go into the stout manila envelope. Then, after some meditation, Hemming added the following note: