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Thus he commences one of his stories with the brazen statement: “In Texas you may journey for a thousand miles in a straight line.” You can’t, of course; and O. Henry knew it. It is only his way of saying that Texas is a very big place. So with his tincture of aconite. It may be poisonous or it may not be. But it sounds poisonous and that is enough for O. Henry. This is true art.

After his brief drugstore experience O. Henry moved to New Orleans. Even in his Texan and Central American days he seems to have scribbled stories. In New Orleans he set to work deliberately as a writer. Much of his best work was poured forth with prodigality of genius into the columns of the daily press without thought or fame. The money that he received, so it is said, was but a pittance. Stories that would sell to-day—were O. Henry alive and writing them now—for a thousand dollars, went for next to nothing. Throughout his life money meant little or nothing to him. If he had it, he spent it, loaned it, or gave it away. When he had it not he bargained with an editor for the payment in advance of a story which he meant to write, and of which he exhibited the title or a few sentences as a sample, and which he wrote, faithfully enough, “when he got round to it.” The story runs of how one night a beggar on the street asked O. Henry for money. He drew forth a coin from his pocket in the darkness and handed it to the man. A few mo-