“When I say the truly good, I mean those who are so very good that the fool-good are blinded by their reputation and so toil for them for next to nothing. I tell you, publishers have no pudding down here, and the religious ones seem to be singled out for special punishment. One man is here tonight who used to run a religious paper. All he paid his writers was one dollar a column, and however hard they tried they couldn’t earn over six or seven dollars a week. He made contracts with the poor fellows to write for him alone, so they could not help themselves when he cut down the number of columns. One of these unfortunate men wrote a book while this contract was in force and it made quite a success and blow me! if the religious chap did not go and claim the book, too. How it would have turned out I do not know for the publisher died. I'll show him to you when we go down, that is if you would care to see him.” “You bet I would!” said the reporter with sudden warmth. Whereupon the ghost said in a manner to calm his just anger: “I don't think they are all so bad. But one thing I have noticed and that is that all the publishers have money, and all the things that money brings, while the great majority of the writers are poor, some of them miserably so. All the religious publishers and editors are down here and rather flock together. They seem to enjoy talking over the tricks of trade. I used to think that I was something of a pirate, too, in my way, and therefore their conversations interested me more probably, than they might otherwise have done. If you were to hear them talk together you would think much less of them than you do now.” “I couldn’t!” answered the young man, with emphasis and conviction. “I will show you another thing tonight that ought to please you if you take any special interest in publishers, and that is what is done with those publishers who make the writers wait for their money until their stories are published. It would be a balm for the hearts of the authors, and I wish you would let the writers know about it. It may be a poor satisfaction for those who die before their stories are published. It has always been a satisfaction to me to whale the fellow that tries to cheat me out of my own, and if I can’t whale him to see someone else do it and do it up brown.” “They tell us that we must speak no evil of the dead,” said the young man tritely.