do like them to be modest and retiring as most of them are. It is so interesting trying to draw them out, whereas nobody cares to hear anything that someone else is dying to tell them. It's only the things that there's a chance of your not getting to know that you are really keen on hearing. But still, whatever there might be against 'Argustus Strong,' it was impossible to ignore the woman who had written a book like 'Number 2001, 25th Street,' that had run into seventy-four editions.
'Yes,' she was saying with a purr of self-congratulation, 'they are just bringing out the seventy-fifth edition. That will make the total number up to seven hundred thousand copies. But I'm just going to bustle round until it tops the million. I guess that'll be a record that no one on earth can sneeze at.'
I looked at her sadly. Could this really be the woman who had written that charming, touching tale of the poorest quarter of the great American city, which had found its way to the hearts not only of her fellow-countrymen, but of all the English-speaking world—the very book that I was now so deeply interested in, and should have doubtless enjoyed until the end if I hadn't been unfortunate enough to meet its authoress? I looked at her. She still wore that complacent smile, and I felt that she was going to boast some more about the popularity of the book. I understood now why it was that I had felt at the very first that she lacked something. It was the saving grace of modesty. That woman positively shone with pride in her
