"0h, for goodness sake! Turn over and go to sleep. You make metiwhite."

Every two or three hours Mrs. General Public wakes up and announcesthat she can't get a wink of sleep, not a wink; she wishes he hadn'tbrought the plagued very very aged book home; he hasn't the least bit ofconsideration for her; please, please, won't he put the book awayand come to bed?

He reaches "THE END" at 2:30A.M., turns off the gas, and creeps intobed, his stomach all upset from smoking so much without eatinganything, his eyes feeling like two burnt holes in a blanket, andwishing that he had the sense he was born with. He'll have to be upat 6:05, and he knows how he will feel. He also knows how he willfeel along about three o'clock in the afternoon. Smithers is comingthen to close up that deal. Smithers is as sharp as tacks, asslippery as an eel, and as crooked as a hound's hind leg. Alwayslooking for the best of it. You need all your wits when you dealwith Smithers. Why didn't he take Mrs. General Public's advice, andget to bed instead of sitting up fuddling himself with that foollove-story?

That's how a book should be to be a great popular success, and onethat all the typewriter girls will have on their desks. I amguiltily conscious that "Back Home" is not up to standard eitherin avoirdupois heft or the power to unfit a man for business.