Then, quite suddenly, Mrs. Smith remembered her own brother, the great Marriott
Nolan Tarbro, whose romances sold in editions of hundreds of thousands, and who
was, beyond all doubt, the greatest living novelist. Kings had been glad to meet
him, and newsboys and gamins ran shouting at his heels when he walked the
streets.

"How silly of me," she said. "You must have heard of my brother, Marriott Nolan
Tarbro, you know, who wrote 'The Marquis of Glenmore' and 'The Train Wreckers'?"

Mrs. Bell coughed apologetically behind her hand.

"I'm not very littery, Mrs. Smith," she said kindly, "but mebby Mrs. Stein knows
of him. Mrs. Stein reads a lot."

Mrs. Stein, whose sole reading was the Bible and such advertising booklets as
came by mail, or as she could pick up on the counter of the drugstore, when she
went to Kilo, moved uneasily. For years she had had the reputation of being a
great reader, and brought face to face with the sister of an author she feared
her reputation was about to fall.

"What say his name was?" she asked.

"Tarbro," said Mrs. Smith, as one would mention Shakespeare or Napoleon.
"Tarbro. Marriott Nolan Tarbro."

"Well," said Mrs. Stein slowly, turning her head on one side and looking at the
spot on the ceiling from which the plaster had fallen, "I won't say I haven't.
And I won't say I have. When a person reads as much as what I do, she reads so
many names they slip out of memory. Just this minute I don't quite call him to
mind. Mighty near, though; I mind a feller once that peddled notions through