Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/104

 vengeance. He did not succeed in the end, and the boy was hanged, and murder has gone on in Chicago since, I understand, the same as before. But Darrow could not leave Springfield until midnight of that day, and we talked about books all the evening, and when he boarded his train he had in his valise the MS. of my story about another governor and another pardon, concerning which he was charged to answer a certain question to which all my doubts and perplexities could be reduced, namely: "Is it worth while, and if not, is there any use in going on and trying to write one that is?"

I had to wait almost as long for his decision as though he had been an editor himself, but when I called at his office in Chicago one morning in the autumn to get the MS., and he told me that his answer to my question was "yes," and that he would, if I agreed, send the story to Mr. Howells, I was as happy as though he had been an editor and had accepted it for publication. I could not agree to its being sent on to weary Mr. Howells, but took it back with me to Springfield, in hope, if not in confidence.

XVI

However, it has seemed to be my fate, or my weakness, which we too often confuse with fate, to vacillate between an interest in letters and an interest in politics, and after that year, whose days and nights were almost wholly given to studying law, I was admitted to the bar, and thereupon felt