Then I looked for a
stationer's shop, and laid out a few of my remaining cents in the
purchase of pen, ink, and paper--my stock of all these things was
at an end when I left New York. Then back to the boarding-house.
Impossible to write in my bedroom, the temperature was below
zero; there was no choice but to sit down in the common room, a
place like the smoke-room of a poor commercial hotel in England.
A dozen men were gathered about the fire, smoking, talking,
quarrelling. Favourable conditions, you see, for literary effort.
But the story had to be written, and write it I did, sitting
there at the end of a deal table; I finished it in less than a
couple of days, a good long story, enough to fill three columns
of the huge paper. I stand amazed at my power of concentration as
often as I think of it!'
'And was it accepted?' asked Dora.
'You shall hear. I took my manuscript to the editor, and he told
me to come and see him again next morning. I didn't forget the
appointment. As I entered he smiled in a very promising way, and
said, "I think your story will do.
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