He went back to the day he first attempted to write, and was appalled at the enormous waste of time--and all for ten words for a cent.

And the other high rewards of writers, that he had read about, must be lies, too.

His second-hand ideas of authorship were wrong, for here was the proof of it.
The Transcontinental sold for twenty-five cents, and its dignified and artistic cover proclaimed it as among the first-class magazines.

It was a staid, respectable magazine, and it had been published continuously since long before he was born.

Why, on the outside cover were printed every month the words of one of the world's great writers, words proclaiming the inspired mission of the Transcontinental by a star of literature whose first coruscations had appeared inside those self-same covers.