Mr. White was glad to consider "He Was A Stranger." He thumbed over the pages, noted the length, and asked what price Edwards would put upon the manuscript in case it was acceptable. Edwards named $500, and told of "The Brave and Fair" which Harte & Perkins, a few years before, had bought at that figure. Mr. White replied that _The Argosy_, as yet, was unable to pay such prices, but that he would read the story and, if he liked it, make an offer. A few days later he offered $250 for serial rights. Edwards took into consideration the fact that the story would establish him in the columns of a growing magazine and, with an eye to the future, accepted the offer. He has never had occasion to regret his decision. From the beginning of the year Edwards had been doing a large amount of five-cent library work for Harte & Perkins. A new weekly had been started, the writer who furnished the copy failed to get his manuscript in on time, and Edwards was given a story to finish and, a few days afterward, the entire series to take care of. At the time he sold the serial to Mr. White, he was supplying weekly copy for two libraries--the old Five-Cent Library and the new weekly, which shall here be referred to as the Circus Series. On the proceeds from the sale of "He Was A Stranger" Edwards and his wife had a little outing at Atlantic City. They returned to New York for a few days, and then went on to Boston. Here, comfortably quartered in a hotel, Edwards devoted his mornings to work and his afternoons to seeing the "sights" with Mrs. Edwards. They haunted Old Cambridge, they made pilgrimages to Salem, to Plymouth and to other places, and they enjoyed themselves as they had never done before on an eastern trip. Later they finished out the summer near Monterey, in the Berkshire Hills. During all these travels the Fiction Factory was regularly grinding out its grist of copy--so many pages a day, so many stories a week. Two libraries, together with a sketch each month for a trade paper published by Harte & Perkins, kept Edwards too busy to prepare any manuscripts for _The Argosy_. Much of his work, while in the Berkshires, was done in longhand. On this point Mr. Perkins wrote, July 25: "I should think you would miss your typewriter. I fear that I shall miss it, too, when I read your manuscript, although I find your writing easier to read than that of any of our other writers." In August the Edwards went West, visited for a time in Michigan and then in Wisconsin, finally returned to the former state and, in the little country town where Edwards was born, bought an old place and settled down.