South, or West--whether you're buying codfish, goober peas, or Rocky
Ford cantaloupes. Now, I've been looking over your November number. I
see one here on your desk. You don't mind running over it with me?

"Well, your leading article is all right. A good write-up of the
cotton-belt with plenty of photographs is a winner any time. New York
is always interested in the cotton crop. And this sensational account
of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, by a schoolmate of a niece of the Governor
of Kentucky, isn't such a bad idea. It happened so long ago that most
people have forgotten it. Now, here's a poem three pages long called
'The Tyrant's Foot,' by Lorella Lascelles. I've pawed around a good
deal over manuscripts, but I never saw her name on a rejection slip."

"Miss Lascelles," said the editor, "is one of our most widely
recognized Southern poetesses. She is closely related to the Alabama
Lascelles family, and made with her own hands the silken Confederate
banner that was presented to the governor of that state at his
inauguration."

"But why," persisted Thacker, "is the poem illustrated with a view of
the M. & O. Railroad freight depot at Tuscaloosa?"

"The illustration," said the colonel, with dignity, "shows a corner
of the fence surrounding the old homestead where Miss Lascelles was
born."

"All right," said Thacker. "I read the poem, but I couldn't tell
whether it was about the depot of the battle of Bull Run. Now, here's
a short story called 'Rosies' Temptation,' by Fosdyke Piggott. It's
rotten. What is a Piggott, anyway?"