Chapter XIV - Page 2

no human editor at the other end, but a mere cunning arrangement of
cogs that changed the manuscript from one envelope to another and
stuck on the stamps. It was like the slot machines wherein one
dropped pennies, and, with a metallic whirl of machinery had
delivered to him a stick of chewing-gum or a tablet of chocolate.
It depended upon which slot one dropped the penny in, whether he
got chocolate or gum. And so with the editorial machine. One slot
brought checks and the other brought rejection slips. So far he
had found only the latter slot.

It was the rejection slips that completed the horrible
machinelikeness of the process. These slips were printed in
stereotyped forms and he had received hundreds of them - as many as
a dozen or more on each of his earlier manuscripts. If he had
received one line, one personal line, along with one rejection of
all his rejections, he would have been cheered. But not one editor
had given that proof of existence. And he could conclude only that
there were no warm human men at the other end, only mere cogs, well
oiled and running beautifully in the machine.

He was a good fighter, whole-souled and stubborn, and he would have
been content to continue feeding the machine for years; but he was
bleeding to death, and not years but weeks would determine the
fight. Each week his board bill brought him nearer destruction,
while the postage on forty manuscripts bled him almost as severely.
He no longer bought books, and he economized in petty ways and
sought to delay the inevitable end; though he did not know how to
economize, and brought the end nearer by a week when he gave his
sister Marian five dollars for a dress.

He struggled in the dark, without advice, without encouragement,
and in the teeth of discouragement. Even Gertrude was beginning to
look askance. At first she had tolerated with sisterly fondness
what she conceived to be his foolishness; but now, out of sisterly
solicitude, she grew anxious. To her it seemed that his
foolishness was becoming a madness. Martin knew this and suffered
more keenly from it than from the open and nagging contempt of
Bernard Higginbotham. Martin had faith in himself, but he was
alone in this faith. Not even Ruth had faith. She had wanted him
to devote himself to study, and, though she had not openly
disapproved of his writing, she had never approved.

He had never offered to show her his work. A fastidious delicacy
had prevented him. Besides, she had been studying heavily at the
university, and he felt averse to robbing her of her time. But
when she had taken her degree, she asked him herself to let her see
something of what he had been doing. Martin was elated and
diffident. Here was a judge. She was a