In less than a month after the completion of “The Through Sleeper” he found a letter from Brounlow & Company waiting for him in the office. It contained simply a request that he call and see them, and he found time to go the same day. “Our readers have given a very favorable opinion of ‘The Through Sleeper,’ Mr. Sumner,” one of the members of the firm said to him. “In fact they consider it unusually good; but of course we never can tell how much such a thing may strike the public. We have decided that we can offer you five hundred dollars for it, for publication in The Illustrated Weekly, the story to be brought out in book form immediately after the serial publication, well illustrated, in a one-dollar volume. On sales of the book, of course, we will pay you the usual ten per cent. royalty.” Here was a victory at last! That was Dick’s first thought; but a moment later he began to consider that the battle was not half-won yet. It was only the publisher who was convinced so far of the excellence of his story. The publisher was willing to risk his money in bringing out the book, but it was the public who had to give the final verdict. If the public liked the book well enough to buy it, the publisher would buy more stories from him. But if otherwise--why, then otherwise. Some imposingly long blank contracts were filled out and signed, and “The Through Sleeper” became the property of Brounlow & Company, under certain conditions. Dick read the contract through before signing it, like a prudent business man; but in the end he had only a confused notion of having agreed to all sorts of odd things about reading proofs, charge for changes in type, sale of copies at trade price, insurance of stereotype plates, and assignment of copyright. It had long been a heroic notion of Dick’s that when he got his first check for a piece of real literary work, if indeed he ever did get one, he would carry it lovingly to his mother and lay it in her hands. “There, mother,” he would say, “that is the first money I have made out of literature. It is yours, every cent of it; buy yourself something nice with it.” And then he would hold his mother in his arms and kiss her, and she would congratulate him on his success. He thought of this while he sat in the Brounlow office. But this little castle in the air crumbled, as so many of them do. “Our custom is to pay for serial stories as they appear,” the partner said. “‘The Through Sleeper’ will run through five numbers, so we will pay you one hundred dollars for each instalment as fast as it is published. I suppose that will be satisfactory?” “That will answer every purpose,” Dick replied; he would not say that it was satisfactory, for he had set his heart on a good plump check to carry home. But never mind; he had good news to carry--news that was better than the check.