During January, 1903, a theatrical gentleman requested Edwards to dramatize a book which Messrs. Street & Smith had issued in paper covers. "You can change the title," the gentleman suggested, "and slightly change the incidents. In that way it won't be necessary to write Street & Smith for permission or, indeed, to let them know anything about it." Edwards knew, however, that nothing will so surely wreck a writer's prospects as playing fast and loose with editors and publishers. He refused to consider the theatrical gentleman's proposition. Instead, he forwarded his _Argosy_ story, "The Desperado's Understudy," upon which Mr. White had given him dramatic rights, and offered to make a stage version of it. The offer was accepted and a play was built up from the story. The theatrical gentleman was pleased and said he would give $1,500 for the dramatization. Then, alas! the theatrical gentleman's company went on the rocks at the Alhambra Theatre, in Chicago, and Edwards had repeated his former playwriting experience. The two years' work figured out in this wise: 1902: 23 Five-Cent Libraries @ $40 each $ 920.00 8 detective stories @ $40 each 320.00 4 juvenile serials @ $100 each 400.00 1 sketch for trade paper 10.00 "The Desperado's Understudy," 250.00 "The Campaign at Topeka," 200.00 Short stories 67.00 -------- Total $2167.00 1903: 42 Five-Cent Libraries @ $40 each $1680.00 2 detective stories @ $40 each 80.00 "Ninety, North," 150.00 "There and Back," 250.00 "A Sensational Affair," short story, 15.00 "Grains of Gold," 300.00 "Fate's Gamblers,"[I] 100.00 "The Morning Star Race," short story, 15.00 "A Game for Two," 200.00 Royalties on book, "A Tale of Two Towns," 96.60 "The Point of Honor," 150.00 -------- Total $3036.60 As several gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force of genius only, without the least assistance of learning, perhaps without being able to read, have made a considerable figure in the republic of letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to assert, that all kind of learning is entirely useless to a writer, and indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural sprightliness and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and prevented from soaring to those high flights which otherwise it would be able to reach.