The editor quite conceivably agreed with him. He returned the manuscript
with a rejection slip. Anthony sent it off elsewhere and began another
story. The second one was called "The Little Open Doors"; it was written
in three days. It concerned the occult: an estranged couple were brought
together by a medium in a vaudeville show.
There were six altogether, six wretched and pitiable efforts to "write
down" by a man who had never before made a consistent effort to write at
all. Not one of them contained a spark of vitality, and their total
yield of grace and felicity was less than that of an average newspaper
column. During their circulation they collected, all told, thirty-one
rejection slips, headstones for the packages that he would find lying
like dead bodies at his door.
In mid-January Gloria's father died, and they went again to Kansas
City--a miserable trip, for Gloria brooded interminably, not upon her
father's death, but on her mother's. Russel Gilbert's affairs having
been cleared up they came into possession of about three thousand
dollars, and a great amount of furniture. This was in storage, for he
had spent his last days in a small hotel.
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