ple who grow peanuts or prepare them for the market. I found out some "stagey" stuff on peanuts in my preliminary skirmishes, and my suggestion on this subject was perhaps radical. I proposed seriously that a certain magazine send me to Virginia to get the first-hand peanut yarn, done in local color and all that. The idea fell flat with this magazine-I never heard from the editor. But in such cases the ideas of course reverted to me after a lapse of months, so I submitted the peanut thought to another magazine. No echo. A third time it failed to penetrate. And then-but I shall come to that later.

Through some of my rummaging in the library or elsewhere, I got the notion 'that tin cans offered hope. Surely there must have been people and struggles and episodes galore in tin cans. So I wrote on a suggestion sheet, Tin Canners. Underneath, boldly indented in purple, I sketched the method I should use in handling the story, adding just a little. about the psychology of it all, for psychology had become quite an obsession with me, and is yet.

I don't care so much for the psychology of the colleges, or for college economics and philosophy, though I admit them to be good for those just learning to understand things. Practical psychology and economics have helped me tremendously in my every-day work.

This tin-can idea ran about the same course as the other. I shall come to that too, after a while.

Meanwhile I was doing other seconddary and incidental things as well, and so was my wife. She was busy writing a book for girls, her first attempt at long fiction, and I had three juvenile books under way, and took turns at them as I felt in the mood.

On one of these books I concentrated especially between six and nine o'clock in the morning, or until the postman's whistle blew. This was only when the notion hit me, for never were my habits regulated by the clock except when

I don't believe a writer can follow fixed hours and do his best work. Unless allowed to indulge his moods and inspirations, he has a weight upon him that grows unendurable. Somehow this particular book was a six a. m. job. I could start at six and work upon it easily, and have a thousand words done when the postman came around the corner. Another book that occupied me simultaneously was hopeless for those early hours. This, too, was a juvenile story, dealing with newspaper life, and it had to be done. between midnight and five o'clock coffee. Otherwise it seemed flat and stale, just as I had felt myself, years before, when at dawn I made my way homeward from the Chicago Herald.

Meanwhile I was grinding slowly at the big mill which I hoped would turn out my masterpiece of serious work. With all the other distractions—including measles and chickenpox in the house, and ten-mile tramps to keep fit for the big literary show-this great work shaped up slowly and uncertainly. Hundreds of pages of yellow paper I filled with false pencil starts, or with typewritten lore, afterward carefully burned in the heater down cellar lest my innermost thoughts be seized upon by another writer. I did not know how many authors there might be about, but New York was alive with them. I am sure not many of these writing men and women had worked out such a plan as mine to break in. Most of them were battering with ineffectual explosives.

My idea mill did not arouse immediate response, but I swore not to call on a single editor until he sent for me. Several months went by, and the strawberry patch became a more imminent possibility. On one of my tramps I came near buying a location for two thousand dollars-five hundred down-and when I told friend wife she said right away, "Go back and take it. That land will be valuable some day."

This was one of the few times I did

not obey her; and today this strawberry patch, if it had become ours, would net us twenty-five thousand dollars.

One of my money-losing characteristics all through life has been over-concentration on a single purpose-to write. I never had time to see the chances to make easy money. My head was too full of philosophy for other people, and how to smash up the editorial door.

Yet what would a million dollars be if ambition were abandoned and dead? You can get so much money that a new shirt gives you never a thrill, but a real writer reacts to every true word-picture he creates, up to the day he shuts down his typewriter for the final journey.

About this time my idea factory drew an unexpected phonogram from an editor. At last the telephone in our budget justified itself. "Mr. Editor would like to see you as soon as possible," the female slave said.

I took the subway, scarcely realizing that my practical psychology had actually done it. The editor received me with welcoming hand and glad smile-just as I had prognosticated. He forgot the lunch.

"What salary do you want, to work for us?" was his question.

"Work? What sort of work?" I hesitated.

"On our staff-to go out and do articles for us. We like some of your ideas, and we can take you on and try you out."

Try me out-good heavens! I was posing as a writer who was already tried out and had arrived! I, who had written books, and whose printed words ran into untold millions. I shrank inches under his hopeful eyes, and then came back to normal height, realizing that every piece of a writer's work is a try-out. This was merely a quixotic way of expressing it.

Here was temptation laying hold of me again, working its satanic spell. How much salary did I want? Put that question to any man who has had no income for five months, and imagine his reaction.

oned off my thorny path toward easier lanes, and now again I had to struggle.

"I am doing independent work," was my excuse. It sounded hollow and idiotic -seemed like throwing money and opportunity into the bay.

"You wouldn't like to be on our staff?" "My engagements would not permit," I said, crossing my fingers secretly. "I should like to do articles for you on some other basis."

Home I went with a commission to do six articles on a time schedule. The work would require a month's trip, and the writing and revisions could not be fairly estimated in advance. I was to receive sixty dollars a week and expenses; and accustomed as I was to Chicago rates of those days, this looked very good.

My wife would not be pleased, I knew ; nor was she. This looked like near-surrender, for the temptation to go on with salaried work would reassert itself. I told her no; that I had fought too many of those battles to let this one get me. When the six articles were done I would resign. So she packed my traveling bag while I put away my Great Work, and that night I departed on the strange task my idea mill had stirred up.

I resigned by wire on the twenty-second day, my pay checks for the second and third weeks having failed to reach me. The expense money I had advanced myself. Not that I had much fear of losing the money; the magazine seemed good for it. But the episode gave my mood a twist toward my original purpose, and this was the time to get back. Exulting, I waited for a train home, when a telegram came from the editor, apologizing. It was the cashier's fault, and the checks were now on the way. The reports I had sent in were fine. "Go ahead," he wired cheerfully.

Dismal thoughts kept me awake that night. Was this editor to be another Higgins, to pat me on the back and raise my pay? I had dragged my family away from home and friends on an exalted errand, and now I was fussing around with evanescent articles for sixty dollars

I felt dizzy for a moment, fighting off the tempter. Eternally had I been beck

a week, which nevertheless was money enough to tempt me away from the steep

trail.

I fulfilled my contract for the articles, received my pay, and found myself struggling once more in the current that took me on the wrong course, for the editor offered me seventy-five dollars to stay, and promised a hundred as soon as the magazine's advertising patronage supplied the money.

"This must not be the net result of our New York adventure," advised my wife. "It may be hard to give up seventy-five dollars a week just now, but I think we'd better stick to our own game."

I tried to switch the editorial offer to a basis on which I might continue to work independently, remaining my own. master and free to do other things. He was obdurate, for his plan was to have most of his writing done by staff men. He wanted all my time or none.

He got none. I quit, with a desperate feeling in my throat as I took his hand and said good-bye. Never have I done a line for him since.

I don't wish to name this magazine, lest it show up unfavorably with another periodical with which I had a similar experience. This latter incident came some months later, but it fits right here.

The magazine was McClure's. My grist of ideas was now pulling rather unexpectedly, and I received a letter from its managing editor, Cameron Mackenzie, who afterward became more than an editor to me; he was a personal friend. He wrote me to come and see him, and true to my psychology he did take me out to lunch, down on Fulton Street. He said the work I proposed was unique, and he might want it later, but now he had a bigger job. He would like me to follow up a certain man of national distinction, get his autobiography, and write it for him. Owing to the nature of the work McClure's would compensate me on a time basis. About how much would I want?

I desired very much to be a McClure contributor; and as this was just a single

piece of work, I made up my mind quickly to undertake it. I was still under the spell of Chicago as it was then, though some Chicago magazines afterward were as generous as New York's. But being accustomed to a limited financial vision, I had in mind the salary offered me before, seventy-five dollars a week. This was on my lips, but one of my flashing inspirations stopped the words.

"I'll leave that to you," I proposed. "A hundred and fifty dollars a week, say?" he asked. It would not have been strange had I fallen off my chair, for my addled brain refused to function for a minute. That night I started on a pursuit of this new subject, who was at a resort hundreds of miles away. On my arrival in the morning, I discovered he had left the night before. Following him, we played tag for some days, when I got him at his home-but he was sick in bed.

Ultimately he died with the narrative. unwritten. This is a type of work you must do on the magazine's gamble. Salary, or no "autobiography"! Don't speculate yourself with the whims of great

men.

For a long time I had a deal of work in McClure's, and found the most sympathetic co-operation.

Before this, I had small assignments. from trade papers in New York, these periodicals having come within the scope of my path. of my path. Since I was using every reputable agency to further my larger hopes, there was no good reason why this fertile field should not be utilized, though certain misguided writers had told me I would stigmatize my reputation by "descending" to trade publica

My first assignment from this type of market came from a publication devoted to toys and dolls, and arose from a bit of imagination plucked out of blue sky.

I was walking on upper Sixth Avenue on my way from the Public Library, feeling rather glum because the sort of work I wanted was scarce, and because it was hard to settle down to my Great Idea and get anything tangible out of it. Dubious it seemed that I could ever reduce my new philosophy to any printable form except the novel. Whenever I sought to express it in a short story I ran into a essay, which I felt would not do. Then my mood was aggravated by all this petty work for mere money, just for existence. I had almost resolved to tackle another problem novel and take my chances, slim though they were.

Proceeding down Sixth Avenue, a second-class business street, my eyes fell upon a forlorn show window in which was displayed a mess of toys and children's goods. The very peccancy of the window stopped me.

I was no window-trimmer, no merchant; but instantly my imagination registered a decisive kick against that display. Standing there for ten minutes, I began to get from somewhere-heaven only knows how those things comemental pictures of a very different toy exhibition. On the way home the pictures changed and reshaped themselves time and again.

My intent had been to work that night on my practical philosophy, but I brushed the attempted manuscript to the floor and laid out my ideas for a window that would attract mothers and children. After midnight the Idea sheet was mailed to the trade paper.

It brought a quick response and a request to call on the editor. Without any enthusiasm, I took a commission to write a fifteen-hundred-word article for fifty dollars, using as much fancy as I pleased. On a sudden instinct of revolt, I stipulated that a nom de plume must be used.

Several articles of this sort followed, taking up different types of window dis

plays, about which I really knew nothing. It was all fanciful invention; and probably that was where its value lay. Imagination is a marvelous asset to business, as it has been to me. As a writer, it has enabled me to pick up money out of the most sordid and commonplace scenes and incidents. No matter where I moved, I saw money sticking out—far more indeed than I could pluck. Had I really gone after that sort of money, I could have hired a gang of pickers, built a large writing factory, and bought a Rolling Roister. What I wanted was not really money at all, but the chance to express myself according to my urge. We needed money at home, but primarily it was never money we went after. Rather late I did modify this purpose somewhat, as I hope to relate further on.

Too much purpose and not enough money isn't a good thing, I am sorry to say. A purpose can fly away faster than the man without money-wings can pursue. Don't get the notion that a certain degree of financial independence will hurt you, or that writing for the trade papers. will necessarily dim your nimbus. Yet I don't intend to advise any man how far to go in the pursuit of Mammon alone.

My articles on the imaginative show windows attracted the attention of a trade paper in the drygoods line. Again I put the philosophy stuff on the floor, that being the only place I had to file it. Of course I possessed quite a background for this trade-paper work, acquired during my activities for the business magazines, but I think that any versatile writer could get this shadow of technique if he set about it. The main element with me was imagination. Almost invariably it was this inventive faculty that made my work in demand with these editors. I put people, and plenty of them, into my narratives, nor were they mere wooden, unnamed persons. Jim Mc

Allister had a fishy eye and shaved only twice a week. Blanche O'Peep wore an artificial spot on each cheek, and had run-down heels.

This trade-paper work began to

threaten the philosophy with utter extinction, and to handicap seriously my efforts to reach more of the magazines with feature articles. It was my fate to be damned at every turn with crosspurposes.

One day I got the tip that the associate editor of a trade publication was soon to quit and start a periodical of his own, and that I could have his position. For me this was the red light-the danger signal. I was succeeding at everything except the big task, and now was the time to watch out again.

We had the combination to a living income, anyhow, when we needed it, and my wife and I both felt that the day had come to go after philosophy hard and fast.

It was around this time that I made a hurried trip to Chicago in the attempt to collect several hundred dollars due me by a magazine, now defunct. This was money I really wanted.

Failing in this errand, and having cut off a good income, I felt poor indeed. There was no item of personal traveling expense in our budget, and just how my wife would take care of this wasted trip I could not guess. She had ways of slicing off here and there. For all I knew, she might let her toothache go until next year, and thus switch over the dental item to traveling. Anyhow, I saw a way to cut out Pullman fare. I could ride in a day coach.

I had done a lot of this in my early years, and now the adventure of riding all night in a red-plushed car began to have its appeal. Some of this oozed away during the night, especially as I could not get a windowsill for my elbow, and had to sit on the end of my back and sleep with my neck hitched upon the rim of the car seat.

Around two o'clock I got out for a sandwich during a stop, and as I climbed aboard again it became my lot to assist a pathetic woman with two babies and numerous bags. She was changing from some other train, and as every seat was

filled I took out my grip and gave her my seat.

The rest of the night I spent in the smoking car, thinking that I could write a special article on People Who Sit Up Nights on the Railroad. This title hit me at four o'clock, and clinched the idea. Sometimes when an author conceives a headline with a swing and punch, before he writes the article, it will exude an aura of inspiration and help him do the work.

The mistress met me at the Grand Central Station, and the moment she looked into the sooty canals of my countenance she rebuked me. "You came home in a day coach!"

I showed her twenty pages of copypaper, written in pencil between four and seven o'clock, with the catchy head at the top. I had the story typed that day, and sold it immediately to a newspaper syndicate for a hundred dollars. My wife thereupon entered a travel column on our budget and charged my Chicago expense against it.

Even if I commit tautology, I must observe again that closeness to real life, coupled with keen observation and a sleepless imagination, will open to the writer unsuspected opportunities strange places. It is hard to write of the people if we travel through life always

in a Pullman.

at

It was soon after this that the editor of Printers Ink wrote, inviting me to call. He had looked over some of my suggestions, received some months before, and he wanted me to do one or two of them.

Then The World Today, afterward Hearst's Magazine, took up some thoughts I had proposed, inviting me to do a series. of articles. The pay was small, something like sixty dollars an article, but subsequently this work led me into the Hearst publications at greatly increased

remuneration.

Somewhere in this general period came my first wedgings into such magazines as Short Stories, the American Boy, Munsey's the Railroad Man's Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Scientific American,