There is a secret spring behind almost every column.

It depends on what the editor had for supper the night before whether he wants Foster hung or his sentence commuted.

If the literary man had toast and tea, as weak as this before me, he sleeps soundly, and next day says in his columns that Foster ought not to be executed; he is a good fellow, and the clergymen who went to Albany to get him pardoned were engaged in a holy calling, and their congregations had better hold fast of them lest they go up like Elijah.

But if the editor had a supper at eleven, o'clock at night of scallops fried in poor lard, and a little too much bourbon, the next day he is headachy, and says Foster, the scalawag, ought to be hung, or beaten to death with his own car-hook, and the ministers who went to Albany to get him pardoned might better have been taking tea with some of the old ladies.
I have been behind the scenes and know all about it, and must admit that I have done some of the bad work myself.

I have on my writing-stand thirty or forty books to discuss as a critic, and the column must be made up.