Her good-natured face wore an anxious look. "An' it's not for me to say really, but them young gentlemen upstairs are not your kind, and I'm sorry if I'm presuming, Mr. Dean," she said, wiping her hands on her apron. "Not at all--I appreciate your anxiety, Mrs. Perdie," answered John. "I shan't use my latchkey very often, you'll find." "There, sir, I felt I must say it, seeing you might ha' been my own son, sort of fashion, an' I'm easy now." She disappeared suddenly below. At ten-thirty that morning, John sat in the office of the _New Review_. He had with him a letter of introduction from Mr. Vernley to Melton Cane, the editor. For one hour he sat in the waiting-room overlooking Covent Garden, while he listened to the whirr of the typewriter in the next room. A door on his right opened into the editor's den, wherein sat the assistant editor reading manuscripts, which he took ceaselessly out of a big tin box. The reader was a tall heavy man, with sandy hair and a fresh complexion. He had chatted pleasantly with John and told him poetry was a drug on the market, and they were choked with it. "Ever since we discovered Mayfield's narrative epic, we've been inundated with plagiaries of his work. I wade through them until I sink in despair." "But I haven't brought any poetry," explained John. The big man gave a sigh of relief. "You look like a poet--which made me think there was no hope for you--all those who look the part write dreadful rubbish. You saw that schoolgirls-dream come in a few minutes ago?" He alluded to a magnificent, leonine-headed youth with flaming tie and dark cloak whom John had taken for one of the great on earth. "Here's the stuff he's left--without a stamped addressed envelope for return-- _My soul is bitter within me, Long nights have I contemplated The ego that is mine And questioned to what immortality Destined I go--_ I can tell him at once--the waste paper basket." The offending manuscript joined the pile of the rejected. "You do write?" asked the assistant editor. "A little." "Prose or poetry?" "Prose." "Ah! there's some hope, but not much. Are you aware, my dear boy, that only three out of every hundred novels bring their authors royalties, and that only one of those three provides a decent income? Do you know that editors rely on big names, their directors' literary shareholders and occasionally, when they have been out of town too long and must go to press, the literary agent?" John did not know this. The assistant editor stood up and yawned. "One day I'm going to run a school of authorship. Having been a hack for ten years with the income of a typist, I shall tell the aspirants how to become authors, and get testimonials from all the editors in whose papers I shall advertise my prospectus. Have a cigarette?"