"The upshot was, I found out all about him and his ambitions for _Whim_; and the fantastic upshot of _that_ was, I'm now doing a nonsense column a week for him--have been for the past five--and getting fifty dollars a week for my nonsense, too! I sign the thing "Dax"--a signature invented by shutting both eyes and punching at my typewriter three times, just to see what would happen. "Dax" happened, and I'm to be allowed to burble on as him--I think Dax is a him--for ten weeks; then, if my stuff goes, catches on, gets over--I'm to have a year's contract. And farewell to double-room-and-alcove for aye! Else, farewell _Whim_! So it _must_ get over--I'm determined! I stick at nothing. I even test my burble on poor Sister every week before sending it in. If she smiles sadly, twice, I seal up the envelope and breathe again. "That's my bird in the hand, Jimmy--a sort of crazily screaming jay--but I mustn't let it escape. "There's another bird, though. A real bluebird, still in the bush--and oh, so shy! And he lures me into the second and beautifulest part of all Gaul---- "It's no use, I'm dished! Sister says no one ever wrote or read such a monstrous letter, and commands me to stop now and go to bed. There's a look in her eye--she means it. Good-night and good luck--I'll tell you about my other two parts of Gaul as soon as I can, unless you wire me--collect--'Cut it out!' Or unless you run down--you never have--and learn of them that way. Why not--_soon_?" VII Jimmy Kane took the hint, or obeyed the open request, in Susan's letter and went down to New York for the week-end; and on the following Monday Miss Goucher wrote her first considerable letter to me. It was a long letter, for her, written--recopied, I fancy--in precise script, though it would have been a mere note for Susan. _My dear Mr. Hunt:_ I promised to let you know from time to time the exact truth about our experiment. It is already a success financially. Susan is now earning from sixty to seventy dollars a week, with every prospect of earning substantially more in the near future. Her satirical paragraphs and verses in "Whim" are quoted and copied everywhere. They do not seem to me quite the Susan I love, but then, I am not a clever person; and it is undeniable that "Who is Dax?" is being asked now on every hand. If this interest continues, I am assured it can only mean fame and fortune. I am very proud of Susan, as you must be. But, Mr. Hunt, there is another side to my picture. In alluding to it I feel a sense of guilt toward Susan; I know she would not wish me to do so. Yet I feel that I must. If I may say so to you, Susan has quickened in me many starved affections, and they all center in her. In this, may I not feel without offense that we are of one mind?