When he recovered them, he sent them to the magazines in the East, from which they were returned more promptly, accompanied always by the printed rejection slips.
The short stories were returned in similar fashion.

He read them over and over, and liked them so much that he could not puzzle out the cause of their rejection, until, one day, he read in a newspaper that manuscripts should always be typewritten.

That explained it.

Of course editors were so busy that they could not afford the time and strain of reading handwriting.

Martin rented a typewriter and spent a day mastering the machine.