Send it along. The title is not a bad one. I suppose it will arrive at a quarter past five, as you are generally late.... Now that spring is here, go out and chop a few kindlings against the canning of the fruit. This season we are going to preserve every dam thing on the farm. In the meantime, put up a few bartletts for little Willie. We may drop in provided the nest contains room." He received an urgent invitation to "drop in." But he didn't. He backed out. Possibly he was afraid he would have to "pioneer it" in the country, after years of metropolitan luxury in the effete East. Or perhaps he was afraid that Edwards might read some manuscripts to him. Whatever the cause, he never appeared to claim the "bartletts," made ready for him with so much painstaking care by Mrs. Edwards. But this was not the only count in the indictment. He sent back "On the Stroke of Four!" And this was his message: "Up to page 106 this story is a peach. After that it is a peach, but a rotten peach, and I'd be glad to have you fix it up and return it." After Edwards has finished a story he has an ingrained dislike for tampering with it any further. However, had he not been head over ears in other work, he would probably have "fixed up" the manuscript for Mr. Davis. In the circumstances, he decided to try its fortunes elsewhere. Mr. Moses took it in, paid $400 for it, and pronounced it better than "The Billionaire's Dilemma." At a later date, Mr. Davis wanted another sea story for _Ocean_ which, at that time, was surging considerably. "On the Stroke of Four" had been designed to fill such an order. Inasmuch as it had failed, Edwards wrote a second yarn which was accepted at $450. The sea, and the people who go down to it in ships, to say nothing of the ships themselves, were all out of Edwards' usual line. He prepared himself by reading every sea story he could lay hands on, long or short. He bought text-books on seamanship and navigation, and whenever there were manoeuvers connected with "working ship" in a story, Edwards puzzled them out with the help of the text-books. With both deep-water serials he succeeded tolerably well. He is sure, at least, that he didn't get the spanker-boom on the foremast, nor the jib too far aft. Harte & Perkins again favored the Factory with an order for a "Stella Edwards" to begin another volume of _The Guest_. This was an automobile story, "The Hero of the Car," and was accepted and highly praised. Another novelette, "An Aerial Romance," was bought by Mr. Moses for _The People's Magazine_. Beginning in March, Edwards had written some more nickel novels for Harte & Perkins--not the old Five-Cent Weekly, for that he was never to do again--but various stories, in odd lots, to help out with a particular series. On July 14 he was switched to another line of half-dime fiction, and this work he kept throughout the remainder of the year. For the two years the Factory's showing stands as follows: