So it was that he entered abruptly upon a lean period, wherein he continued selling his earlier efforts to publications that would not pay and submitting his later work to magazines that would not buy.

Also, he resumed his trips to the pawn-broker down in Oakland.

A few jokes and snatches of humorous verse, sold to the New York weeklies, made existence barely possible for him.

It was at this time that he wrote letters of inquiry to the several great monthly and quarterly reviews, and learned in reply that they rarely considered unsolicited articles, and that most of their contents were written upon order by well-known specialists who were authorities in their various fields..