He had never thought of such things before; and he promptly set to work writing the article over, referring continually to the pages of the rhetoric and learning more in a day about composition than the average schoolboy in a year.

When he had copied the article a second time and rolled it up carefully, he read in a newspaper an item on hints to beginners, and discovered the iron law that manuscripts should never be rolled and that they should be written on one side of the paper.

He had violated the law on both counts.

Also, he learned from the item that first-class papers paid a minimum of ten dollars a column.

So, while he copied the manuscript a third time, he consoled himself by multiplying ten columns by ten dollars.