In your present situation, therefore, you have nothing for it, as I said before, but to turn author.

Wait! and hear me out.

The book I want you to make is a book of all your stories.

You shall repeat them, and I will write them down from your dictation.

Our manuscript shall be printed; we will sell the book to the public, and so support ourselves honorably in adversity, by doing the best we can to interest and amuse others." While I was saying all this--I suppose in a very excitable manner--my husband looked, as our young sailor-friend would phrase it, quite _taken aback._ "You were always quick at contriving, Leah," he said; "but how in the world came you to think of this plan ?" "I thought of it while you were telling them the gambling-house adventure downstairs," I answered.
"It is an ingenious idea, and a bold idea," he went on, thoughtfully.
"But it is one thing to tell a story to a circle of friends, and another thing to put it into a printed form for an audience of strangers.
Consider, my dear, that we are neither of us used to what is called writing for the press." "Very true," said I, "but nobody is used to it when they first begin, and yet plenty of people have tried the hazardous literary experiment successfully.