NEW YORK — 1890.
[DEAR FAMILY:]
Today has been more or less feverish. In the morning's
mail I received a letter from Berlin asking permission to
translate "Gallegher" into German, and a proof of a paragraph
from The Critic on my burlesque of Rudyard Kipling, which
was meant to please but which bored me. Then the "Raegen"
story came in, making nine pages of the Scribner's, which
at
ten dollars a page ought to be $90. Pretty good pay for three
weeks' work, and it is a good story. Then at twelve a young
man came bustling into the office, stuck his card down on the
desk and said, "I am S. S. McClure. I have sent my London
representative to Berlin and my New York man to London. Will
you take charge of my New York end?"
If he thought to rattle me he was very much out of it,
for I said in his same tone and manner, "Bring your New York
representative back and send me to London, and I'll consider
it. As long as I am in New York I will not leave The Evening
Sun."
"Edmund Gosse is my London representative," he said; "you
can have the same work here. Come out and take lunch."
I said, "Thank you, I can't; I'll see you on Tuesday."
"All right," he said. "I'll come for you. Think of what
I say. I'll make your fortune. Bradford Merrill told me to
get you. You won't have anything to do but ask people to
write novels and edit them. I'll send you abroad later if you
don't like New York. Can you write any children's stories for
me?"
"No," I said, "see you Tuesday."
This is a verbal report of all and everything that was
said. I consider it a curious interview. It will raise my
salary here or I go. What do you think?
DICK.
