Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/81

 V

Of Publishing: With an Unlikely Appendix

So Kennaston preserved this bit of metal. "No fool like an old fool," his common-*sense testily assured him. But Felix Kennaston's life was rather barren of interests nowadays

He thought no more of his queer dream, for a long while. Life had gone on decorously. He had completed The Audit at Storisende, with leisured joy in the task, striving to write perfectly of beautiful happenings such as life did not afford. There is no denying that the typed manuscript seemed to Felix Kennaston—as he added the last touches, before expressing it to Dapley & Pildriff—to inaugurate a new era in literature.

Kennaston was yet to learn that publishers in their business capacity have no especial concern with literature. To his bewilderment he discovered that publishers seemed sure the merits of a