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began going to Heffelbower’s my stuff had been coming back with alarming frequency. Lately I had been dashing off my jokes and articles with the greatest fluency. Previously I had laboured like a bricklayer, slowly and with agony.
Presently I opened a letter from the editor of the weekly with which I had a regular contract. The checks for that weekly article were still our main dependence. The letter ran thus:
Dear Sir:
As you are aware, our contract for the year expires with the present month. While regretting the necessity for so doing, we must say that we do not care to renew same for the coming year. We were quite pleased with your style of humour, which seems to have delighted quite a large proportion of our readers. But for the past two months we have noticed a decided falling off in its quality.
Your earlier work showed a spontaneous, easy, natural flow of fun and wit. Of late it is laboured, studied, and unconvincing, giving painful evidence of hard toil and drudging mechanism.
Again regretting that we do not consider your contributions available any longer, we are, yours sincerely,
The Editor.
I handed this letter to my wife. After she had read it her face grew extremely long, and there were tears in her eyes.
“The mean old thing!” she exclaimed indignantly. “I’m sure your pieces are just as good as they ever were. And it doesn’t take you half as long to write
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