Falling asleep at last, I regained a part of my courage, and at breakfast a faint glow of hope crept into my thinking. At nine o'clock I took the day train and in silence rode for nearly twelve hours, retracing the thirty years which lay between my first view of Manhattan and this my hundredth reentrance. With no thrill of excitement I crossed the ferry and having registered at a small hotel on Thirty-fourth Street, went to bed at nine o'clock completely worn out with my journey. A long night's sleep and a pot of delicious coffee for breakfast put so much sunshine into my world that I set out for Franklin Square with a gambler's countenance, resolute to conceal my dismay from my friends and especially from my publisher. There was something in the very air of Broadway which generated confidence. Harpers' editors were genial, respectful, but by no means enthusiastic concerning my autobiographic manuscript, although I assured Duneka that I had vastly improved it since he had read it a year before. "That may be," he granted, "but it is not fiction and nothing serializes but fiction. We'll be glad to schedule it as a book, but I don't see any place for it in our magazine." And then--more to get rid of me than for any other reason, he added, "You might see _Collier's_. Mark Sullivan is the editor up there now; it might be that he could use something of yours." Duneka's indifference even more than his shunting my precious manuscript into the street brought back my cloud of doubt, for it indicated a loss of faith in me. To him I was a squeezed lemon. Nevertheless I took his hint. Sullivan, I knew and liked, and while I had small hope of interesting him in _The Middle Border_, I did think he might buy one or two of my short stories. The _Collier's_ plant humming with speed, prosperous and commercial, was not reassuring to me, but I kept on through the maze until I reached Sullivan's handsome room, where I was given an easy chair and told to wait, "the editor will see you in a few minutes." Alert, kindly, cordial, Mark greeted me and taking a seat, fixed his keen blue, kindly eyes upon me. "I'm glad to see you," he said, and I believed he meant it. He went on, "This is the psychological moment for us both. I am looking for American material and I want something of yours. What have you to show me?" Thus encouraged I told him of _A Son of the Middle Border_. He was interested. "Where is the manuscript? Is it complete?" "It is. I have it with me at the hotel." "Send it down to me," he said quickly, "I'll read it and give you a verdict at once." In an illogical glow of hope I hastened to fetch the manuscript, and in less than two hours it was in his hands. I speak of my hope as "illogical" for if the literary monthly of my own publishers could not find a place for it, how could I reasonably expect a hustling, bustling popular weekly like _Collier's_ to use it?