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that man unless there's more cream on the top than there has
been here lately."
"M."
"Henry!"
"Oh, what is it?"
"Aren't you 'most done reading?"
"In a minute, just as soon as I finish this chapter."
"How long is that chapter, for mercy's sakes?"

"I began another."
"Henry!"
"What?"
"Aren't you coming to bed pretty soon? You know I can't go to sleep
when you are sitting up."
"Oh, hush up for one minute, can't ye? It's a funny thing if I can't read a
little once in a while."
"It's a funny thing if I've got to be broke of my rest this way. As much
as I have to look after. I'd hate to be so selfish . . . . Henry! Won't you
please put the book down and come to bed?"
"Oh, for goodness sake! Turn over and go to sleep. You make me
tired."
Every two or three hours Mrs. General Public wakes up and announces
that she can't get a wink of sleep, not a wink; she wishes he hadn't
brought the plagued old book home; he hasn't the least bit of
consideration for her; please, please, won't he put the book away and
come to bed?
He reaches "THE END" at 2:30A.M., turns off the gas, and creeps into
bed, his stomach all upset from smoking so much without eating
anything, his eyes feeling like two burnt holes in a blanket, and wishing
that he had the sense he was born with. He'll have to be up at 6:05, and
he knows how he will feel. He also knows how he will feel along about
three o'clock in the afternoon. Smithers is coming then to close up that
deal. Smithers is as sharp as tacks, as slippery as an eel, and as crooked
as a dog's hind leg. Always looking for the best of it. You need all your
wits when you deal with Smithers. Why didn't he take Mrs. General
Public's advice, and get to bed instead of sitting up fuddling himself
with that fool love-story?
That's how a book should be to be a great popular success, and one that

all the typewriter girls will have on their desks. I am guiltily conscious
that "Back Home" is not up to standard either in avoirdupois heft or the
power to unfit a man for business.
Here's a book. Is it long? No. Is it exciting? No. Any lost diamonds in it?
Nup. Mysterious murders? No. Whopping big fortune, now teetering
this way, and now teetering that, tipping over on the Hero at the last
and smothering him in an avalanche of fifty-dollar bills? No. Does She
get Him? Isn't even that. No "heart interest" at all. What's the use of
putting out good money to make such a book; to have a cover design
for it; to get a man like A. B. Frost to draw illustrations for it, when he
costs so like the mischief, when there's nothing in the book to make a
man sit up till 'way past bedtime? Why print it at all?
You may search me. I suppose it's all right, but if it was my money, I'll
bet I could make a better investment of it. If worst came to worst, I
could do like the fellow in the story who went to the gambling-house
and found it closed up, so he shoved the money under the door and
went away. He'd done his part.
And yet, on the other hand, I can see how some sort of a case can be
made out for this book of mine. I suppose I am wrong - I generally am
in regard to everything - but it seems to me that quite a large part of the
population of this country must be grown-up people. If I am right in
this contention, then this large part of the population is being unjustly
discriminated against. I believe in doing a reasonable amount for the
aid and comfort of the young things that are just beginning to turn their
hair up under, or who rub a stealthy forefinger over their upper lips to
feel the pleasant rasp, but I don't believe in their monopolizing
everything. I don't think it 's fair. All the books printed - except, of
course, those containing valuable information; we don't buy those
books, but go to the public library for them - all the books printed are
concerned with the problem of How She can get Him, and He can get
Her.
Well, now. It was either yesterday morning or the day before that you
looked in the glass and beheld there The First Gray Hair. You smiled a
smile that was not all pure pleasure, a smile that petered out into a sigh,

but nevertheless a