Chapter XXIX

CHAPTER XXIX

It was a hard summer for Martin. Manuscript readers and editors
were away on vacation, and publications that ordinarily returned a
decision in three weeks now retained his manuscript for three
months or more. The consolation he drew from it was that a saving
in postage was effected by the deadlock. Only the robber-
publications seemed to remain actively in business, and to them
Martin disposed of all his early efforts, such as "Pearl-diving,"
"The Sea as a Career," "Turtle-catching," and "The Northeast
Trades." For these manuscripts he never received a penny. It is
true, after six months' correspondence, he effected a compromise,
whereby he received a safety razor for "Turtle-catching," and that
THE ACROPOLIS, having agreed to give him five dollars cash and five
yearly subscriptions: for "The Northeast Trades," fulfilled the
second part of the agreement.

For a sonnet on Stevenson he managed to wring two dollars out of a
Boston editor who was running a magazine with a Matthew Arnold
taste and a penny-dreadful purse. "The Peri and the Pearl," a
clever skit of a poem of two hundred lines, just finished, white
hot from his brain, won the heart of the editor of a San Francisco
magazine published in the interest of a great railroad. When the
editor wrote, offering him payment in transportation, Martin wrote
back to inquire if the transportation was transferable. It was
not, and so, being prevented from peddling it, he asked for the
return of the poem. Back it came, with the editor's regrets, and
Martin sent it to San Francisco again, this time to THE HORNET, a
pretentious monthly that had been fanned into a constellation of
the first magnitude by the brilliant journalist who founded it.
But THE HORNET'S light had begun to dim long before Martin was
born. The editor promised Martin fifteen dollars for the poem,
but, when it was published, seemed to forget about it. Several of
his letters being ignored, Martin indicted an angry one which drew
a reply. It was written by a new editor, who coolly informed
Martin that he declined to be held responsible for the old editor's
mistakes, and that he did not think much of "The Peri and the
Pearl" anyway.

But THE GLOBE, a Chicago magazine, gave Martin the most cruel
treatment of all. He had refrained from offering his "Sea Lyrics"
for publication, until driven to it by starvation. After having
been rejected by a dozen magazines, they had come to rest in THE
GLOBE office. There were thirty poems in the collection, and he
was to receive a dollar apiece for them. The first month four were
published, and he promptly received a cheek for four dollars; but
when he looked over the magazine, he was appalled at the slaughter.
In some