IF THACKERAY CAME TO NEW YORK.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 83, 8 April 1911, Page 10

IF THACKERAY CAME TO NEW YORK.

GREY'S ELEGY IN A SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT, Just under the roof seventy-five linotypes clattered like scattering volleys of musketry. Twelve stories and a basement below rumbled and roared the heavy artillery, twenty octuples and eight colour presses rioting in four gay inks. Somewhere midway between these two opposing sound waves, tho flanks of the army of twentieth century publicity, a sharp staccato of telegraph instruments, the shout of orders, the in-and-out-coming rush of orderlies, marked the centre, headquarters, the managing editor's office, where the general guided and directed, stormed and swore, hired and fired and intermittently fought with the telephone, while his lieutenants rushed hither and thither with pages of ammunitibn and added in their own weak, imitative ways to the general madness. The door of the editorial room opened with an apologetic push and a tall, heavy-set old man stole softly in. He seemed strangely out of place and he stopped hesitatingly and looked at the Sunday editor through a pair of ironframed spectacles behind which twinkled a pair of quizzical grey eyes. Two little wisps of grey whisker flanked the kindly, humorous face, and stray locks to match escaped from under the antique top hat. A wide opening collar, and a black stock, a fustian coat with long, loose, rolled lapels and big buttons, completed the costume. "Well, what can 1 do for you?" said the Sunday editor, looking up from the wet proofs of the Christmas Special. "I — I have a novel I would like to show you," stammered the visitor. "Don't want it." "But, sir, you don't understand. You haven't seen it. This novel will make my reputation and that of the publica tion that first prints it. Future generaions will pore over it, and it will be pronounced the greatest in the language. My name already is not unknown, but this work will fix it in the annals of literature for all time to come." The Sunday editor had a few moments. It was December and Christmas was approaching. He had just had a particularly nice luncheon and a cigar with the coffee, to say nothing of a pony of maraschino and cognac. He would humour this caller, who was quite the oddest he had met since his predecessor was fired. "Have you the manuscript there?" The visitor handed over the- bulky bundle he had been fondly caressing. "Hum," grunted the Sunday editor. )'• 'Vanity Fair.' Not a bad title if it isn't an ad. for some department store or amusement park. How many words did you say?" "I haven't counted up, but I should say about 300,000." "Three hundred thousand! Man, do you realise that at the rate we print serials, a hundred and fifty lines a day and a double illustrated instalment on Sunday, it would take about five years to_ run this through? But wait a minute. Maybe it can be cut to forty or fifty thousand words." The visitor winced as if someone had stuck him with a pin. The Sunday editor laid the sheets face up oh his desk and began turning them over face down into another pile. His hand rose and fell with the rhythm of a pendulum. The Sunday editor was reading. An occasional "humph" denoted approval or disapproval accordI ing to the tone. The visitor sank into ■ a chair and watched helplessly. "Where in the name of all that's prosaic does this thing begin ? Why didn't you go back to Japhat? Wasn't he one of the ancestors?" Sometimes the Sunday editor turned over a hundred pages at once, but he neither paused nor lost the thread of the story. Finally he reached the finis, executed with a dashing scroll and a | Hogarthian sketch. TTien he looked up. j "In some respects you have a fine | story here. The plot isn't half bad, but you've ruined it with your digressions and sermonisings. That sort of j thing doesn't go nowadays. What the , public wants is an incident in every other line ; a a battle, a mystery I in every page." "I see," smiled the visitor; "you like them strong, and no mistake; no lovemaking^ no observations about society, little dialogue, except where the characters are bullying each other,- plenty of fighting and a villain in the cupboard who is to suffer tortures just before finis. Thank you ; you've given me material for an essay." "Now," continued the Sunday editor, impatient at the interruption, "yon ought to give this story a more modern setting. Put old man Osborne in Wallstreet. Have old Sedley go broke over Standard Oil. Make Becky Sharp a i Bowery girl, and Lord Steyne a Pittsburgh millionaire. Have this Rawdon Crawley, young Osborne, and this other j chap with, the horse's name figure as rough-riders in the Spanish-American war, and let young Osborne be killed in wmi rSP wi - ll n h Roosev€l t up San Juan Hill. Then, if you cut oiit all the sermons and all reference to the collateral relations— that is, remove the Pitts— it ought to bring it 'down to about forty thousand words. If you'll fix it up along those lines and consider the honour of having us rtin it as part payment, 1 11 try to make room for it, but it will «t ' V tf ar before I S efc around to it." I thank you for your flattering offer, but I fear I- cannot meet its conditions," sadly returned the visitor, replacing the roll of manuscript in the crown of his j°P "I think I shall offer it to the Corahill Magazine, which has already published several essays from my pen. " "Never heard of the magazine. One of the new ten-centers, I suppose" ; but the dignified grey old man had disappeared, and the .Sunday editor turned again to the proofs of the Special Christmas Edition. Again the door opened. The Sunday editor looked up wearily. "Must Be a divine healer," he mused. Ihe caller waj a tall spare man of courtly grace. Chestnut curls fell almost to the collar of his blue coat. A high buttoned clerical waistcoat opened only wide enough to display the top of a frilled shirt. The editor gave a start when his eyes wandered down and he observed that his caller was clad in" knee breeches, silk stockings, and pumps with silver buckles. He glanced quickly upto the tace, which was smooth shaven and almost feminine in its clean-cut lines, sensitive mouth, aquiline nose, and big, limpid brown eyes. "Well, what is it?" the Sunday editor enquired. "I have an original poem, sir, I should like to have you read." "I hope it is more original than that remark, testily exclaimed the Sunday editor. "Well, let's see it." The caller drew from the cavernous tails of his coat a roll tied with a ribbon and reverently handed it to him who was judge, jury, and executioner of such children of men's fancy. "Another rolled manuscript," thought the Sunday editor. "Oh, well, this seems to be the day for entertaining cranks." He unrolled the sheets, rerolled them the other way to make them lie flat, and spread them out before him. i "First, what do you call it? ' ho ask-

"There, sir, isthe title upon the first sheet," answered the caller. " 'An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,'" read the Sunday editor. "That's no title. I might as well head a story by our policeman 'A Murder Story Written in the Back End of O'Rafferty's Saloon.' " "Perhaps the perusal of my lines may suggest some more fitting title, in which case I shall gladly be guided by your judgment," meekly replied the caller. "But I think you will find my lines passable, to say the least." The Sunday editor ■ lifted the pages and let them fall at the rate of one every five seconds. In exactly three minutes he had read the one hundred and twenty-eight lines, two verses to the page. "Pretty fair verse," he said, authoritatively, "but too serious. No call for that corb of thing now. The comic or topical is all the rage now. Let's see; couldn't you parody this some way?" The Sunday- editor took a pad of paper and scribbled for a few minutes. "Now, something like this," and he read : "The hell afc last has clanged the final race Scattered the tickets o'er the clubhouse lea. Again the homeward loser's train I face. And quit the track iv anything but glee." The caller gasped, snatched his precious sheets and fled. Again the door opened and again the Sunday editor looked up from the wet proofs of the Grand Special Christmas Edition and glanced from head to foot afc the following items of description :—: — A tri-corn hat, curly grey locks gathered into a pig-tail behind, big bowed glasses, a smoothly shaven, kindly face, a buff, big-buttoned great-coat surmounted by a frill, knee breeches and buckles. — Frank Lovell Nelson in New York Life.