Part 24

“‘Oh, yes, my dear,’ replied Uncle Robert, ‘you shall have the story, which is most important. For you must know that the spring is a magic spring, and the water in the flask is magic too, with most magical properties. The spring had its origin in the tears of an unfortunate young maiden named Zubaydah, who, on the very spot where it now flows, found the body of her lover Ghanim, cruelly slain. She fell on his breast, lamenting wildly, and when they tore him away from her embracing arms, she would not stir, but remained there, refusing drink and food alike, and weeping, weeping constantly, until in the end she too died. Their story is most pathetic and some day you shall hear it; but now it is of no further importance, save for the fact that when they bore her tenderly away, a spring was flowing from the ground she had so plentifully watered with her tears. And the water of that spring had this remarkable quality: that when a flask of it is jointly possessed by true lovers, so long as neither commits a crime against their mutual love, the water remains as you saw it, clear, sparkling, translucent; but should either of the lovers prove false to the other, the water becomes dark, thick, muddy--an ugly symbol of the wrong that has been done.

“‘Always, even when I was quite young,’ concluded old Forsythe, ‘there was in my nature a strong materialistic strain--a strain of cynicism some said; but to me it seemed rather a strain of common sense, which enabled me to see things as they were, quite uninfluenced by the emotional disturbances which impaired the calm judgments of my fellows. So, though at this time I expected to marry and, of course, expected that my wife would be in love with me when we married, yet I was quite aware that there could be no guarantee that she would remain so. The value of a flask of this water to a person so able as myself to gaze without blinking upon the realities of life, was very evident. I should present it to my wife on our wedding day and tell her its story; and though I knew it could avail no more than anything else on this earth to keep me her love, yet I hoped that it might serve to guard me against those unpleasant little eccentricities of conduct which sometimes follow the death of conjugal affection. It was with this hope that I always preserved it, and it is with a similar hope on your behalf, my dear Robert, that I have presented you and Amy with the flask.’

“The old gentleman sat down in the midst of a stunned silence. It was, of course, an atrocious thing that he had done. On their very wedding day to suggest that the love of the bridal pair might not last forever! Craig’s face was pale and his lips were tightly compressed; on Amy’s cheeks burned two angry red spots. But, as I have said before, when one has a relative who is very old and also very wealthy, it is astonishing how lenient one becomes toward his lapses from what one believes to be the correct standards of taste and conduct. Neither Craig nor his wife spoke; the silence lasted yet another moment, then some one made a remark, which, however pointless, at least had the merit of provoking a general conversation, in the course of which old Forsythe and his crudeness were ignored by general consent.

“A little later Craig found his wife upstairs, just as she had donned her traveling dress. Uncle Robert, of course, was not there; and Craig permitted himself to become quite angry. The flask stood sparkling in the sunlight, on a little table where Amy had placed it on coming into the room. Craig would have smashed it to pieces, but Amy stayed his hand.

“‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘your uncle may ask for it when he comes to see us, and we could not afford to offend him by telling him we had destroyed it.’

“The fact that it was she who saved the flask from destruction, afterwards seemed to Craig a rare bit of irony; but at the time he saw only an early proof of the wise, semi-maternal interest every good wife takes in her husband’s affairs, and he found it so inexpressibly touching that, instead of smashing the flask, he kissed his wife.

“Nevertheless, they did not exhibit old Forsythe’s wedding gift conspicuously in their drawing-room, though it was there that they found it greeting them upon returning from their trip. What to do with it was quite a problem until Mrs. Craig found a vacant space behind a row of books in the library, and there it was promptly bestowed. You see, as a hiding-place, this spot had two great virtues: it hid, which is a requisite of all hiding-places, and it allowed the flask to be quickly produced in case of Uncle Robert’s visits, which was a requisite of this particular hiding-place.

“After about two years had passed, however, they found that they had lost all sensitiveness upon the subject, and they even, at times, with a decided feeling of being an old married couple, treated the episode humorously for the benefit of their friends. ‘Dear Uncle Robert and his quaint idea of an appropriate wedding gift!’ They were able to adopt this attitude the more easily, perhaps, because there seemed so little probability that the event, to guard against which Uncle Robert had given them the flask, would ever occur. They were a model couple--Darby and Joan in all respects save that of age, and neither had ever shown the slightest inclination to stray beyond the strictest limits imposed by the matrimonial tether. This in spite of the fact that for two years they had not been separated for twenty-four hours at a time. Or should I say because of it? One can never tell. At any rate, when Uncle Robert died, about this time, he had been entirely forgiven, and they grieved for him quite sincerely.

“Now it happened that the bulk of the estate which the old gentleman had left to Craig and any possible children, was stock in a rubber concession in two of the smaller South American states; and it also happened that just after Forsythe’s death, acute trouble began to develop between the two countries. After several weeks of great anxiety, Craig felt that he had no choice, but must go and defend his interests in person. Accordingly, he immediately began his preparations for the trip. Mrs. Craig desired earnestly to go with him, but of this he would not hear.

“‘I shall not be gone over two months at the most,’ he said, ‘and that is not really such a long time. Besides, there will be danger for you if it comes to hostilities; and there is always fever.’

“In the end Mrs. Craig was persuaded to stay at home, and Craig went alone. On the night before he sailed he had an inspiration. He was in the library, disposing of some odds and ends of his affairs, when the inspiration came to him. He went to the bookshelves, pushed aside some books and took out the crystal flask. For a moment he held it in the light of the reading lamp, admiring the lustre of the delicate glass and the clear transparency of the liquid it contained. A smile curved his lips, and he held the neck of the flask over the flame of the lamp until the sealing gum was softened, then removed the stopper, poured out part of the contents and refilled the flask with ink. When he had replaced the stopper, he again held the flask to the light, but now the liquid it contained was a dirty, muddy gray--the color he wished. He smiled again in satisfaction, and returned the flask to its old place on the bookshelf.

“You see, he had conceived the idea of an excellent joke upon his wife. She would in all probability discover the flask at some time during his absence; she would realize immediately what he had done; and he could imagine her laughing with him across the thousand miles that separated them. And what a finish it would make to their story! Perhaps, too, she would play up to the situation by pretending to take her discovery seriously. The affair was full of humorous possibilities, and he amused himself greatly in anticipating them.

“But the absence which was to have extended over not more than two months, as a matter of fact, lasted for a little more than a year. During all this time it was never certain that Craig would not be able to return almost immediately; there was therefore no reason for his wife to join him, and she remained at home--alone.

“Upon what must have happened I can only touch lightly, because I cannot understand it. Mrs. Craig was alone, it is true, but her husband loved her; and when he left, she had undoubtedly cared for him. Of course, with the sudden increase in Craig’s income, she was thrown with a set she had never met before; she and Craig had not been poor, but this change meant wealth, really great wealth, and perhaps it turned her head. Perhaps, being as strangely illogical and as strongly resentful of fancied slights as women always are in matters which concern their affections, she had convinced herself that Craig need never have stayed from her so long, if his inclination and his duty had not traveled along the same road, and in her anger sought for revenge. Perhaps ... but I do not know. One can never tell.

“When at last Craig returned home, however, she greeted him with manifestations of greatest pleasure; and Craig himself, when I met him on the street two days after his arrival, seemed radiantly happy. He had reason to be; he had wealth, occupation, strength and the love of the woman whom he loved. He probably thought himself, and he certainly seemed to me, one of the favored ones of the world.

“It was in all probability on the evening of this day that he first thought of the flask, and then it dawned on him quite suddenly that his wife had not spoken of it. His joke, of course, had failed, because if she had seen the flask during his absence, he would long since have heard something of it. Still, he would get it out and make what he could of the change that had come over it.

“‘Amy,’ he said, ‘we have forgotten to look at the flask.’ He watched her closely, but her face did not change. She did not even show the slight surprise that might have been expected at his sudden introduction of the subject.

“‘So we have,’ she answered. She smiled slightly. ‘If you think an inspection necessary, will you get it?’ She was so ready that it seemed almost as if she had been waiting for his suggestion; but he did not notice this--at the time.

“He walked across the room, already smiling as he thought of the surprise in store for her. Still smiling he reached down into the vacant space behind the books until he found the flask, then turned and held it to the light....

“That was a year ago.

“The next day Craig went to Canada. He did not return until his wife had sailed for Europe. She is still there, and Craig is--as you saw him.”

Drysdale stopped.

“But what was the matter? What was wrong?” exclaimed young Gwillam. “What--”

Drysdale interrupted him.

“You see,” he said, “when he looked at the flask that night, it had once more been filled with a perfectly clear and transparent liquid.”

WHY THE EDITORS BUY

ADVENTURE

As _Adventure_ readers include the cultured and critical as well as those of simple tastes, we seek the kind of workmanship that will stand the difficult test of meeting the approval of both groups. But in selecting our fiction it always seems to us that only that part of the story is effective that reaches the reader’s mind and the highest literary attainment is likely to go hand in hand with simplicity and clearness.

We regard it as vitally important that the illusion should be kept up. We want the reader to leave his own world and to live entirely in the world of the story. For this reason we dislike too pronounced mannerisms of style, too unusual names for characters, misstatements in local color, improbability in plot details. We also wish that the author would avoid the obtrusion of his own personality into the story, too much surface cleverness, the specific call upon the reader to philosophize (thus making him think, rather than keeping him in the receptive mood), a too cynical or sophisticated attitude on the author’s part. In general the two points--clearness and keeping the illusion--are probably those which we emphasize most particularly. We have in addition certain types of story that we try to avoid:--those that involve international or political questions; we dislike stories of opium smuggling; stories in which _all_ of the main characters are “natives”; stories which feature intermarriage. Generally speaking, we do not care much for a villain in the rôle of central character; nor for much high society atmosphere; millionaire circles; prisons; slums; lost wills; psychopathic cases; gangsters. Of course exceptions to all of the above sometimes force themselves upon us by sheer merit.

We do not insist upon the accepted idea of the “happy ending” but we prefer stories that uplift rather than depress. We consider only the net effect of the story on the reader for the man or woman who is reading a magazine, is doing so, primarily with the idea of enjoying or relaxing, not to be made uncomfortable or unhappy. However, a story to sell to _Adventure_ need not be artificially shaped. We are looking for stories that will please our readers and the range of selection is wide indeed.

ARTHUR S. HOFFMAN.

_Adventure._ THE RIDGEWAY COMPANY, Publishers, Spring and Macdougal Streets, New York City.

THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE

In buying a story for _The American Magazine_ I have four leading questions in mind:

1. Is it interesting? 2. Is it true? 3. Does it add to our store of knowledge of human nature? 4. Is there a lift to it?

Not all four requirements are always met in the stories I take but they are the main guide-posts. Let me take these questions in their order and be more detailed and explicit concerning each one.

If a story isn’t interesting, or has a very limited field of interest, no matter how well written it is, I cannot use it in _The American Magazine_. And the interest must not be sporadic, it must be cumulative in its effect. A story should grip the reader’s attention at the beginning and hold it steadily all the way through. Good progressive writing is far more effective than that which contains a number of thrills linked together by long, arid paragraphs.

In asking myself--is it true?--I do not intend to convey the meaning that I am looking for stories of real happenings. As a matter of fact, I am of the opinion that fiction doesn’t dare be as wild and exciting as real life. As Byron wisely said, “Truth is always strange--stranger than fiction.” Consequently I look for stories that _ring_ true, the characters in which have their counterparts in everyday life or are so vividly created by the writer that they are accepted by the reader as natural, even if unusual, human beings. In the making of a plot I want sanity enthroned, the believable things of life depicted; not cock and bull fakes, which although they may create momentary excitement will cause the reader to lay the story down and say, “It’s all right, but it’s highly colored and far-fetched.” I would infinitely rather have less excitement, fewer dramatic pyrotechnics and have the reader slap his knee and exclaim, “Can you beat that for the real thing!” I want him to corroborate and testify to the convincingness and obvious truth of the story out of his own experiences and observations or through the instinctive acceptance of it by his imagination.

I hope, however, from the foregoing words writers will not run away with the idea that so long as the characters are lifelike a story will get across. The ideal story for this magazine is one that has a convincing plot as well as convincing characters. But I would rather sacrifice plot to characterization any day of the week. If a story comes into the office slender of plot but brimful of human wisdom and accurate character work, I buy it. As a matter of fact, some of the most successful stories I have published have been of this type. I do not, however, buy a story that is strong on plot if the characters are overdrawn or unnatural and it has an atmosphere of unreality.

This brings me to my third question: “Does it add to our store of knowledge of human nature?” If the people in a story are natural, if they meet problems with sense of humor, if their actions are interestingly sane and normal, and the story presents news of human nature wisely and accurately, the reader can scarcely avoid learning something to his advantage. His sympathy and imagination are going to be aroused and quickened only by stories that are probable in both character and plot, because they alone will give him a true slant on human nature and add to his understanding of it.

In commenting on the last question, I feel I cannot too strongly emphasize the need of the quality which I define as “lift.” A story may be surpassingly true, the characterization good, the plot well thought out, but if it does not stir the emotion, if it doesn’t make the reader feel better, I am not keen for it. I want cheerful stories that leave a sense of satisfaction in their wake--stories that are full of warmth, charm, friendliness, and right living. Highly colored, far-fetched or gloomy fiction may interest for a moment, but it will not yield genuine and lasting pleasure. I avoid unpleasantly tragic and morbid stories, no matter how well written, because they usually leave a distinct effect of depression. The reader has to recover from them; climb painfully back to a normal belief in human kind. I must have stories that touch the heart as well as appeal to the intellect. They must satisfy the reader and leave him with the feeling of time well spent.

In dividing my answer to your question into definite heads I see that these overlap each other and that consequently my explanations do the same in a measure. But at least they are not contradictory, and I hope the cumulative effect makes my practice clear. You realize much must be left out of an attempt to set down briefly an editorial policy relating to so wide and varied a literary field as that of fiction.

JOHN M. SIDDALL.

_The American Magazine._ THE CROWELL PUBLISHING CO., 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

THE AMERICAN BOY

The _American Boy_ aims to interest and help boys between the ages of twelve and twenty, recognizing the fact that to be helpful to the boy it is necessary first to secure his interest and command his attention. Stories and articles should be of such literary quality as will inculcate the best literary standards in the boy reader, as well as interest him and have an effective message. The atmosphere must be wholesome, alive, vigorous, and inspiring, and stories should be a force for good, not repelling the boy reader by too obvious moralizing, but implying the moral by the characters and the action. The magazine endeavors to put before its boys, through the medium of stories, boy heroes who can set them fine examples; in business stories, it endeavors to inculcate the principles of good business; in athletic stories, it sets forth high athletic ideals.

The _American Boy_ is always particularly careful in the presentation of facts. Stories and articles should always teach truth. Fiction stories, of course, need not be true stories--stories of actual facts--but they should give accurate pictures of the phases of life they are representing; they should not misrepresent the facts of geography, natural science, history, business, or human relationships. Writers who get into the _American Boy_ are those who have a story to tell--a point to make--that is worth while; a story of daring which provides a hero (always demanded by boys); a story of adventure that satisfies the boy’s natural longing to roam; a story of an exciting game which, enthralling the boy, makes clear to him what is right and what is wrong; a story of service that will aid the boy to adjust himself to social life; a story of business that will give the boy a true impression of the workaday world he is to enter. Material with a strong feminine element is not used in the _American Boy;_ nor is “little kid” material. The average age of _American Boy_ readers is sixteen; and boys of that age are interested in the doings, not of boys younger than themselves, but of boys their own age, or older, and of men.

Something to be borne in mind by those who essay to write for a boys’ magazine is the distinct difference between stories of boys and stories for boys. The story of boys is particularly popular just now in adult magazines. It tells of a boy from the adult viewpoint. To the adult, what the boy does is often distinctly humorous. To the boy it is serious business, and he would be properly offended should one poke fun at him in his own magazine. The story for boys must be handled from the boy viewpoint, not from the adult viewpoint. This does not mean that the story should be “written down”--quite the reverse. Once having grasped the boy viewpoint and secured the proper angle, the writer should use the same style and diction as in handling the story of similar sort for the ordinary adult publication.

The story for boys need not necessarily be a story of boys. True, a boy is more likely to be interested in a story with a boy hero than in a story of an adult hero. The magazine wishes to place before its readers fictional characters whom the boy may emulate. It is such characters which arouse his enthusiasm.

WALTER P. MCGUIRE.

_The American Boy._ Detroit, Michigan.

ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY

Why _are_ manuscripts rejected? “Why is a mouse when it spins?” Perhaps the reply to the ancient wheeze, “Because the higher the fewer,” is as satisfactory an answer to the first question as any. There are so _many_ reasons, in fact; so many varied and diverse considerations that enter into the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript that a direct and concise answer is impossible. Wholly aside from the merit of the story there is the question of the editorial, business, political, and religious policy of the magazine; the quantity and character of the material on hand; the length of the story which exigencies of make-up may make impossible for that particular magazine, at that particular time, and a dozen other considerations, varying with each publication and of which the author is quite unconscious.