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"Haven't Made your Mark yet?" said this party. "Tell you what—why don't you get Boomed?"

"Does it hurt?" asked young Bansted Downs.

"Hurts your self-respect just a little and your respect for your fellow-creatures a little more—but it's nothing," replied the party.

"Where do you go?"

"To the Press Booming Department, of course. Just put your name down for Booming, and fill up a form, stating what you require said about you. You began all wrong: I never studied—I only went and put my name down the moment it occurred to me that I would be a genius. I called at the office every day, and shouted my name, and created disturbances, and got turned out; until at last they couldn't stand it any longer, and my turn came.

"They put a long article about me in every newspaper, all the same day—mostly interviews—and quoted me as a classic. Some of 'em described me as a painter, and others as a novelist: I never was either; but it answered all right."

"I called at the office every day and shouted my name."

So young Bansted Downs went to the Booming office, and put his name down, and shouted; and the end of it was he got his Boom, and several editors wrote to him; and he began to be a little successful.

He hired halls, and went before the public in person; and painted on the platform; and sang and played his own compositions to them; and recited his own poems, and acted his own plays; and told them about his own scientific researches, and his military, exploratory, judicial, political, and athletic achievements.

But the thing dulled off, for one day a deputation of the public called at the Booming office to ask something about him; and the office had forgotten his name, and said that he wasn't being Boomed now, as Smith was up; and so the public got on an omnibus and went to Smith's hall, and Bansted Downs faded out.

After that he was to be found all day at the Three Melancholy Geniuses, drooping over fours of Irish; and one day his late instructor happened to come in and find him thus, with his melancholy nose over the edge of his glass.

"Haven't got your Head Above Water, I see?" said the Master Genius. "Sorry you haven't Made your Mark."

"I've made a good many," said Downs, pointing to the wet rings on the counter.