"H'm--no! At least, there is no copyright in a title. It wasn't that. It was for the book's own sake. Publishers don't like other people's titles for their books. I was able to offer a suggestion which made it possible to use the sheets. The bound copies were made paper-pulp of again, I believe." "I can't see much encouragement to authorship in that, Mr. Challis." "None at all. But Mr. Saxby, who is virtually Eatwell and Lushington--one's dead, and the other has become a missionary in Marocco--saw reason to believe I should succeed as a writer, owing to the new first chapter I wrote for this book to accommodate the new title. He made me write a novel for the firm, and I succeeded." "But I don't understand. Wasn't the old title printed anywhere on the old sheets?" "Printed everywhere! The novel was called 'Amaris,' and there were no headlines. The page-tops were just Amaris, Amaris, Amaris all through." "What is 'Amaris'? And how on earth did you manage?..." "Stop a bit, or I shall want Gargantua's mouth. 'Amaris' was a name the author concocted, like Mrs. Kenwig's 'Morleena.' He wanted to be quite sure his heroine's name had never been used for a novel before, so that he could make it the title. But it _had_, with a Latin subtitle, in which _dulcibus_ and _amaris_ were put in contrast...." "Never mind the Latin," said Judith. "What did it mean?" "It amounted to the question, 'Is Life most full of bitter things or sweet?' and the title answered the question. It might have been called 'Dulcibus' for any light it threw on the problem. But it wouldn't have sold. Nothing sells without a snarl or a howl or a pig-sty in it." "But I'm so curious to know how you got over the difficulty." "Simple enough! We turned it into 'Tamarisk.'... How? Why, of course, by printing a 'T' at the beginning and a 'K' at the end. It cost something to run the sheets carefully through again, but not so much as burning them." "What was there about 'Tamarisk' in the book?" "Not a word till I rewrote the first dozen pages. I had to read that blessed book through till I nearly knew it by heart, in order to work out the idea. But it seemed all right when it was done. I was rather proud of it." "I dare say it was tremendously clever. But how _was_ it done? That's what I want to know." "I made the name of the girl 'Tamarisk' instead of 'Amaris,' and then her baby brother can't pronounce it--calls her Amaris; and the family catch the pronunciation, and she adopts the name outright. It was difficult to do, because the conditions implied were those of the bosom of an affectionate family, and the sequel might have clashed...." "Because...?" "Well, you see, the girl becomes a Vampire, and sucks the little brother's blood. But I succeeded. In fact, I think the very difficulties of the situation produced a certain pathos." "I see," said Judith, with a gush of intense perception. "I see that would be so.... Yes, that _is_ the market-cross, this time."