"They've got to be short; I cut twenty lines out of this myself; he'd worked in something about his mother's grave, which wasn't in the picture a bit. Page three: picture of two girls and a man--dodged-up joke underneath. Page four: the beginning of our Grand New Serial Story--which you may begin any week by reading the synopsis at the top; I do the synopsis myself, and the ungrateful beast of an author complains bitterly. That takes up--the serial, I mean--three pages and a bit. More pictures; Continental cuttings--we have to tone them down a bit, but we get 'em very cheap--then a competition which takes up a page, and for which the prizes are small; then our Beginners' Page; which means that they send us stories, and we cut 'em down a bit, and send 'em a nicey-picey letter, saying they'll do better by and by, and will they please let us hear from 'em again. That's rather a cheap page," he added, contemplatively. "Then we finish up with a couple of novelettes in a nutshell; about six hundred words each--must be full of plot; then answers to correspondents--chiefly love and complexion stuff; and there you are! That's what we call editing," he added, proudly. "You can take that home if you like, and have a good look at it." "I quite see that any story as long as mine wouldn't suit," said Jimmy, a little mystified. "I ought to have sent it somewhere else." He half rose from his seat. "Stop a bit," said the young man, taking up the manuscript, and looking through it with his lips pursed. "Stop a bit." He tossed the thing over on to the other desk, and called to the boy: "William--what should you say was the length?" William cast an eye over it--the eye of the expert who was not to be deceived, turned to the last page, seemed almost to weigh it in his hand, and then replied. "Fifteen five hundred--might be a little over," he said, handing it back, and resuming his work as though this were a matter of the smallest interest. "There you are, you see," exclaimed the editor with a triumphant smile. "No good at all. But I'll tell you what I think--and I wouldn't tell everybody. It's got an idea in it; and I can assure you we often get double the quantity, without any idea at all. Now, I wonder if you're prepared to listen to reason?"