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He got up, leisurely. "And now I go," said he, "to paint the lily and adorn the rose. In short, to set forth in adequate and remunerative language the wit, wisdom, virtue, beauty, and ornateness of woman as she thinks men think she is. Nature," reflected The Author, smiling at The Suffragist, "made me a writer. The devil, the editors, and the women have made me a best-seller."
"Then you ought to know why Sophy and I have just got to have people, the sort of people who are coming." She paused. "We haven't best-seller royalties piled up to the roof!" "No," said The Author, bitterly, "but I have. That's why I am forever plagued with strangers. That's why, when I discover a place and people that suit me to perfection, I can't keep 'em to myself! Oh, da drat it all, anyhow!"
They cannot be judged, all of them, on the top plane of perfect excellence; and if we judge them all on any other plane, good, better, best get inextricably mixed. For example, consider once more a novel which at the moment of this writing is a best-seller, and which with reference to its popularity I have discussed in an earlier essay. I mean Mr. Hutchinson's "If Winter Comes."
They closed with the offer, and from the very first the medicine was a money-maker. It would always be a best-seller. And then the irony of fate stepped in and took a hand in Chadwick Champneys's affairs. The man who had hitherto been a failure, the man whose touch had seemed able to wither the most promising business sprouts, found himself suddenly possessed of the Midas touch.
And I'm going to get it, going to get all of it. The income of a successful author makes Mr. Butler look cheap. A 'best-seller' will earn anywhere between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars sometimes more and sometimes less; but, as a rule, pretty close to those figures." She remained silent; her disappointment was apparent. "Well?" he asked. "I had hoped and planned otherwise.
As "the Captain" said, it was just plain every-day work carried on by the application of ordinary common sense. Such best-seller artifices as disguise were absurd. Not only would disguise in all but the rarest cases be impossible, but useless.
The first best-seller I happened to observe in this ignominious position was a novel that came out the same fall that I did. It was six years old to the world, and so was I. I stopped a moment at the counter and opened the book. It had been strikingly popular, with scores of reviews and press notices, and hundreds of admirers. It had made a pretty little pile of money for its exploiters.
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