The story for boys need not necessarily be a story of boys. True, a boy is more likely to be interested in a story with a boy hero than in a story of an adult hero. The magazine wishes to place before its readers fictional characters whom the boy may emulate. It is such characters which arouse his enthusiasm. WALTER P. MCGUIRE. _The American Boy._ Detroit, Michigan. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY Why _are_ manuscripts rejected? “Why is a mouse when it spins?” Perhaps the reply to the ancient wheeze, “Because the higher the fewer,” is as satisfactory an answer to the first question as any. There are so _many_ reasons, in fact; so many varied and diverse considerations that enter into the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript that a direct and concise answer is impossible. Wholly aside from the merit of the story there is the question of the editorial, business, political, and religious policy of the magazine; the quantity and character of the material on hand; the length of the story which exigencies of make-up may make impossible for that particular magazine, at that particular time, and a dozen other considerations, varying with each publication and of which the author is quite unconscious. Generally speaking however 90 per cent of manuscripts are rejected because they fail to grip the interest in the first few pages. It might be remembered that the editor in his official capacity is not an analyst or critic. He is first and foremost a _buyer_; and moreover a buyer of comparatively small quantities picked from an enormous mass of material in a limited time. It would be a total impossibility for him to read and weigh in its entirety every manuscript that comes before him. Also it is unnecessary. One doesn’t have to eat the whole of the egg to discover it is passé. He is a buyer and he knows, or is supposed to, the tastes and desires of his principal--that is to say the particular fraction of the general public to which his particular periodical caters--he knows what they want and it is from that point of view that he reads. It is his job and his joy to supply his readers not only with what they want but with the _best_ of what they want, and, if authors would only believe it, there is more rejoicing in the editorial heaven over one new writer of promise than over the ninety and nine who have already arrived.