"No," said Mr. Gilkowsky. "One is the other. Some one has flim-flammed
you and sold you a typewritten copy of 'Lady Audley's Secret' as a new
novel."


V

When I told Perkins he merely remarked that he thought every publishing
house ought to have some one in it who knew something about books, apart
from the advertising end, although that was, of course, the most
important. He said we might go ahead and publish "Lady Audley's Secret"
under the title of "The Crimson Cord," as such things had been done
before, but the best thing to do would be to charge Rosa Belle Vincent's
thousand dollars to Profit and Loss and hustle for another
novel--something reliable and not shop-worn.

Perkins had been studying the literature market a little and he advised
me to get something from Indiana this time, so I telegraphed an
advertisement to the Indianapolis papers and two days later we had
ninety-eight historical novels by Indiana authors from which to choose.
Several were of the right length, and we chose one and sent it to Mr.
Gilkowsky with a request that he read it to his sweetheart. She had
never read it before.

We sent a detective to Dillville, Indiana, where the author lived, and
the report we received was most satisfactory.

The author was a sober, industrious young man, just out of the high
school, and bore a first-class reputation for honesty. He had never been