Part 29 (1/2)

In two days more it will be three months since I gave up my situation.

I count my little h.o.a.rd day by day, as a castaway might, or a besieged garrison. I have begun to try to get along on cheap foods again--(that is the reason of my indigestion). Yesterday I burned a mess of oatmeal, and now I shall live on burned oatmeal for I know not how long. I was cooking a large quant.i.ty to save time.

I count my store. I have come the last month on eleven dollars! I have been doing my own was.h.i.+ng, and reading the newspapers at a library. I buy nothing but food--chiefly bread and milk and cereals. Why is it that everything that is cheap has no taste?

Sometimes I am angry because I can not have anything good to eat, but I only write my dignified sentiments here.

I am getting down to the limit again; I sit shuddering. I shall have to get some work again; I can not bear to think of it! What shall I do? If I go to that slavery again it will be the death of my soul, for I have no hope, and I can not fight as I did before.

And I can only try one or two publishers more. Oh, take it! Take it!

December 14th.

I went down to see them to-day. The ma.n.u.script mislaid--very sorry--had written readers to examine it at once--expecting report any instant--will write me--etc.

And so I walked home again.

Yes, elegant ladies and gentlemen, I am a poor poet; and my overcoat is out at one elbow, and I am sick. I look preoccupied, too; would you like, perhaps, to know what is in my mind? I will tell you five minutes of it to-day:

”Bang! Bang! Look out of the way there, you fool!--Use Casey's Corn Cure!--Extry! Extry! Evening Slop-Bucket and Swill-Barrel, six o'clock edition!--And it was at seventy-two and the market--Cab! Cab!--Try Jones's Little Five-cent Cigars!--Brown's elite Tonsorial and Shaving Parlors!--Have you seen Lucy Legs in the High Kicker? The Daily Hullabaloo says--s.h.i.+ne, boss?--But she wouldn't cut it on the bias, because she thought--Read the Evening Slop-Bucket! Five hundred million copies sold every year! We rake all the mud-gutters and it only costs you one cent! The Slop-Bucket is the paper of the people!--Move along, young man, don't block up the pa.s.sage! Bang! Bang! Hurry up there, if you want to get aboard--Come along, my honey-baby girl! (hand-organ)--If you will try Superba Soap--Simpkins's Whisky is all the rage!--Isaac Cohenstein's Cash Clothing Store, Bargains in Gents' Fall Overcoats! Look at these! Walk in, sir!

Cas.h.!.+ Cas.h.!.+--The most elegant topaz brooches, with little--Read the Daily Swill-Barrel!--Extry! Extry! He Cut Her Throat with a Carving-Knife!--Bang!

Bang!--Toodles' Teething Sirup--Look at my elegant hat with the flamingo on it!--O'Reilly's Restaurant--walk in and gorge yourself, if you can pay us.

Walk in!--Get out of the way there!--Have you read the Pirate's Pledge! The Literary Sensation--Cas.h.!.+ Cas.h.!.+--Just come and see our wonderful display of newly imported--Smith and Robinson, Diamonds and Jewelry, latest and most elegant--Use Tompkins's Tooth Powder! _Use Tompkins's Tooth Powder!!_ USE TOMPKINS'S--Read the Evening Slop-Bucket! We rake all the mud-gutters!--Murphy's Wines and Liquors--Try Peerless c.o.c.ktails--Levy's High-Cla.s.s Clothing Emporium!--Come in and buy something--anything--we get down on our knees--we beg you!--Cab, sir? Cab!--Bargains! Bargains!--Cas.h.!.+

Cas.h.!.+--_Yein, yein, yein_!”

So it keeps up for hours! And I put my fingers in my ears and run.

December 17th.

To-day I happened to read in one of the magazines an article on a literary subject by a college professor of some reputation. It was a fine piece of work, I thought, very true; and I got to thinking of him, wondering if _he_ might not be the man.

I have no hope that these last publishers will take the book, and so I made up my mind to write to him.

I wrote what I had written to all the others; I told him how I had struggled, and how I was living. Perhaps he is less busy than the rest.