And I can only try one or two publishers more. Oh, take it! Take it! * * * * * December 14th. I went down to see them to-day. The manuscript mislaid--very sorry--had written readers to examine it at once--expecting report any instant--will write me--etc. And so I walked home again. * * * * * Yes, elegant ladies and gentlemen, I am a poor poet; and my overcoat is out at one elbow, and I am sick. I look preoccupied, too; would you like, perhaps, to know what is in my mind? I will tell you five minutes of it to-day: * * * * * “Bang! Bang! Look out of the way there, you fool!--Use Casey's Corn Cure!--Extry! Extry! Evening Slop-Bucket and Swill-Barrel, six o'clock edition!--And it was at seventy-two and the market--Cab! Cab!--Try Jones's Little Five-cent Cigars!--Brown's Élite Tonsorial and Shaving Parlors!--Have you seen Lucy Legs in the High Kicker? The Daily Hullabaloo says--Shine, boss?--But she wouldn't cut it on the bias, because she thought--Read the Evening Slop-Bucket! Five hundred million copies sold every year! We rake all the mud-gutters and it only costs you one cent! The Slop-Bucket is the paper of the people!--Move along, young man, don't block up the passage! Bang! Bang! Hurry up there, if you want to get aboard--Come along, my honey-baby girl! (hand-organ)--If you will try Superba Soap--Simpkins's Whisky is all the rage!--Isaac Cohenstein's Cash Clothing Store, Bargains in Gents' Fall Overcoats! Look at these! Walk in, sir! Cash! Cash!--The most elegant topaz brooches, with little--Read the Daily Swill-Barrel!--Extry! Extry! He Cut Her Throat with a Carving-Knife!--Bang! Bang!--Toodles' Teething Sirup--Look at my elegant hat with the flamingo on it!--O'Reilly's Restaurant--walk in and gorge yourself, if you can pay us. Walk in!--Get out of the way there!--Have you read the Pirate's Pledge! The Literary Sensation--Cash! Cash!--Just come and see our wonderful display of newly imported--Smith and Robinson, Diamonds and Jewelry, latest and most elegant--Use Tompkins's Tooth Powder! _Use Tompkins's Tooth Powder!!_ USE TOMPKINS'S--Read the Evening Slop-Bucket! We rake all the mud-gutters!--Murphy's Wines and Liquors--Try Peerless Cocktails--Levy's High-Class Clothing Emporium!--Come in and buy something--anything--we get down on our knees--we beg you!--Cab, sir? Cab!--Bargains! Bargains!--Cash! Cash!--_Yein, yein, yein_!” * * * * * So it keeps up for hours! And I put my fingers in my ears and run. * * * * * December 17th. To-day I happened to read in one of the magazines an article on a literary subject by a college professor of some reputation. It was a fine piece of work, I thought, very true; and I got to thinking of him, wondering if _he_ might not be the man. I have no hope that these last publishers will take the book, and so I made up my mind to write to him.