"
Mechanically, the "reader" looked at the desk upon which he was sitting,
thought of the manuscript lying in the drawer directly under him, and
said:
"Yes, that may be. Quite likely, in fact."
Of no novel was the secret of the authorship ever so well kept as was
that of The Breadwinners, which, published anonymously in 1883, was the
talk of literary circles for a long time, and speculation as to its
authorship was renewed in the newspapers for years afterward. Bok wanted
very much to find out the author's name so that he could announce it in
his literary letter. He had his suspicions, but they were not well
founded until an amusing little incident occurred which curiously
revealed the secret to him.
Bok was waiting to see one of the members of a publishing firm when a
well-known English publisher, visiting in America, was being escorted
out of the office, the conversation continuing as the two gentlemen
walked through the outer rooms. "My chief reason," said the English
publisher, as he stopped at the end of the outer office where Bok was
sitting, "for hesitating at all about taking an English set of plates of
the novel you speak of is because it is of anonymous authorship, a
custom of writing which has grown out of all decent proportions in your
country since the issue of that stupid book, The Breadwinners."
As these last words were spoken, a man seated at a desk directly behind
the speaker looked up, smiled, and resumed reading a document which he
had dropped in to sign.
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