All reasonable young
authors feel this way after their first draught at the soul-satisfying
spring of publicity. It is only that preposterous young person who was
born tired who fails to experience the sensations that were Partington's
that week; and at the end of the week, again like the reasonable young
author, he began to realize that immortality could not be gained by one
story treating of a fictitious Tommy and an imaginary huckleberry-tree,
and so he sat himself down at his desk once more, resolved this time to
clinch himself, as it were, in the public mind, with a tale of "Jimmie
and the Strawberry-mine." This story did not come as easily as the
other. In fact, Partington found it impossible to write more than a
third of the second tale that night. He couldn't bring his mind down to
it exactly, probably because his mind had been soaring so high since the
publication of his first effusion. For diversion as much as for anything
else during a lull in his flow of language he penned a short letter to
the editor of _Nursery Days_, and announced his intention to send the
story of "Jimmie and the Strawberry-mine" to him shortly--which was
unfortunate. If he had finished the story first and then sent it, it
might have been good enough to convince the editor against his judgment
that he ought to have it. A concrete story can often accomplish more
than an abstract idea. In this event it could not have accomplished
less, anyhow, for the editor promptly replied that he did not care for a
second story of that nature.
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