He immediately made me an offer for The Chief Factor.

I hesitated, because I had been dealing with great firms like Harpers, and, to my youthful mind, it seemed rather beneath my dignity to have the imprint of so new a firm as the Home Publishing Company on the title-page of my book.

I asked the advice of Mr.Walter H.Page, then editor of The Forum, now one of the proprietors of The World's Work and Country Life, and he instantly said: "What difference does it make who publishes your book?
It is the public you want." I did not hesitate any longer.

The Chief Factor went to Mr.Archibald Clavering Gunter and the Home Publishing Company, and they made a very large sale of it.

I never cared for the book however; it seemed stilted and amateurish, though some of its descriptions and some of its dialogues were, I think, as good as I can do; so, eventually, in the middle nineties, I asked Mr.Gunter to sell me back the rights in the book and give me control of it.