Later on he wrote that he had been made a corporal and his grandmother, to whom a major general and a corporal were of equal rank, rejoiced much both at home and in church after meeting was over and friends came to hear the news. Mrs. Ellis declared herself not surprised. It was the Robert Penfold in him coming out, so she said. A month or two later one of Albert's letters contained an interesting item of news. In the little spare time which military life afforded him he continued to write verse and stories. Now a New York publisher, not one of the most prominent but a reputable and enterprising one, had written him suggesting the collecting of his poems and their publication in book form. The poet himself was, naturally, elated. “Isn't it splendid!” he wrote. “The best part of it, of course, is that he asked to publish, I did not ask him. Please send me my scrapbook and all loose manuscript. When the book will come out I'm sure I don't know. In fact it may never come out, we have not gotten as far as terms and contracts yet, but I feel we shall. Send the scrapbook and manuscript right away, PLEASE.” They were sent. In his next letter Albert was still enthusiastic. “I have been looking over my stuff,” he wrote, “and some of it is pretty good, if you don't mind my saying so. Tell Grandfather that when this book of mine is out and selling I may be able to show him that poetry making isn't a pauper's job, after all. Of course I don't know how much it will sell--perhaps not more than five or ten thousand at first--but even at ten thousand at, say, twenty-five cents royalty each, would be twenty-five hundred dollars, and that's something. Why, Ben Hur, the novel, you know, has sold a million, I believe.” Mrs. Snow and Rachel were duly impressed by this prophecy of affluence, but Captain Zelotes still played the skeptic. “A million at twenty-five cents a piece!” exclaimed Olive. “Why, Zelotes, that's--that's an awful sight of money.” Mental arithmetic failing her, she set to work with a pencil and paper and after a strenuous struggle triumphantly announced that it came to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. “My soul and body!” she cried. “Two hundred and fifty thousand DOLLARS! My SOUL, Zelotes! Suppose--only suppose Albert's book brought him in as much as that!” Her husband shook his head. “I can't, Olive,” he said, without looking up from his newspaper. “My supposer wouldn't stand the strain.” “But it might, Zelotes, it MIGHT. Suppose it did, what would you say then?”