Part 6 (2/2)

”'Yes'm,' I says, modest, like G. W. when is papa caught him executing the cherry tree. 'I wrote it. I am the author. Here, as you see me now, in tropical but dripping diffidence, I am the author of that tome. It's a warm day.'

”She stood in my proximity and explored me with her eyes.

”'An author!' she says, stunned but pleased. 'A real live author! My!

But it is hard for me to grasp a realization of that fact. So you wrote it?'

”'Yes'm,' I says again. 'I done it.'

”'So young, too,' she says. 'Genius is cert'nly a wonderful phenomenus.'

”'It's easy when you know how,' I says off-hand like. 'Book-writing is born in us. When we get warmed up to it it's no trick at all. An author can't no more help authorizing than a stray pup can help scratching.'

”'But,' she says, 'it must be true what I've heard about authorizing being a poor paying job.'

”'Why?' I asks, being suspicious.

”'Because,' she says, 'if it wasn't you wouldn't be touring around to sell your own books after you've wrote them. That is hard work. Now, I have to stay in this kitchen and perspire because I have to, but if you was rich off your books you wouldn't sit on that chair and get all stewed up. I can see that.'

”'What you can't see,' I says, 'is that I came here just because I was the writer of this here composition. Money I don't desire to wish for.

Being a rich man and a philanthropist, I give all I make off of this book to the poor. But it ain't everybody can experience the satisfiedness of seeing a reely genooine author. So I travel around exhibiting myself for the good of the public. And as a special and extraordinary thing--a sort of guarantee to one and all that they have seen a genooine living author--I write my autograph in each and every volume of this book that I sell at the small sum of one-fifty per.

Think of it! Ten thousand verses; moral, intellectooal, and witty; cloth cover, and the author's own autograph written by himself, all for one-fifty. The autograph of the famous boy author.'

”'That's a big bargain,' she says, thoughtful.

”'Jigantic,' I says

”'Genius is cert'nly a wonderful phenomenus,' she repeats again, dreamy.

”'Ain't it!' I responds, sniffing to see if it was my pants that was scorching. 'Will you have one volume?'

”She hesitated, and then she says, 'No. No, I don't dast to. Not yet.

Not till I see how ma comes out. Mebby she'll purchase one before she gits through being talked to.'

”I set straight upward on my hotly warmed chair. 'Being talked to!' I says, astonished.

”'Yes,' says the sweet sample of girl. 'Your son, you know, Mister Samuel Mills; he's in the front room interviewing ma.'

”'My son!' I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es weakly, the thermometer in my spinal backbone going up ten thousand degrees hotter.

”'Such an oldish son, too,' she says, sinfully joyous, 'for such a youngish father. He must have been two years old the day you were born.

Genius is cert'nly a wonderful phenomenus!'

”I set there a minute, wilted, but nervous. Then I got hot, and arose in anger.

”'My son!' I says, scornful. 'So that's what he says, it is? Disgracing his father in that way! All right for him! I disown him out of my family. And I furthermore remark that he ain't my son, nor never was.'

”'Well,' she says, 'you needn't get so hot about it. He's a hard worker.

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