for its payment in the event of its acceptance might be sent. Berkeley
might be the name of an apartment-house or of a country place or of a
suburban town.

The editor stepped out of his office into the larger room beyond and
said: "I've a poem here that appeared in an American magazine about
seven years ago. I remember the date because I read it when I was at
college. Some one is either trying to play a trick on us, or to get
money by stealing some other man's brains."

It was in this way that Edwin Aram first introduced himself to our
office, and while his poem was not accepted, it was not returned. On the
contrary, Mr. Aram became to us one of the most interesting of our
would-be contributors, and there was no author, no matter of what
popularity, for whose work we waited with greater impatience. But Mr.
Aram's personality still remained as completely hidden from us as were
the productions which he offered from the sight of our subscribers. For
each of the poems he sent had been stolen outright and signed with his
name.

It was through no fault of ours that he continued to blush unseen, or
that his pretty taste in poems was unappreciated by the general reader.
We followed up every clew and every hint he chose to give us with an
enthusiasm worthy of a search after a lost explorer, and with an animus
worthy of better game. Yet there was some reason for our interest. The
man who steals the work of another and who passes it off as his own is
the special foe of every editor, but this particular editor had a
personal distrust of Mr. Aram. He imagined that these poems might
possibly be a trap which some one had laid for him with the purpose of
drawing him into printing them, and then of pointing out by this fact