As we sat in council, staring at each other in blank despair, I said, without really meaning it:
"If worse comes to worst, I'll write the story myself."
Instantly the member of the publishing firm who presided over the meeting answered:
"That settles the whole matter. Mr. Eggleston will write the story. The council stands adjourned," and without waiting for my remonstrance, everybody hurried out of the room.
I had never written a story, long or short. I hadn't the remotest idea what I should or could write about. I had in my mind neither plot nor personages, neither scene nor suggestion--nothing whatever out of which to construct a story. And yet the thing must be done, and the printers must have the copy of my first instalment within three days.
I turned the key in my desk and fled from the office. I boarded one of the steamers that then ran from Fulton Ferry to Harlem. I wanted to think. I wanted quietude. When the steamer brought me back, I had in my mind at least a shadowy notion--not of the story as a whole, but of its first chapter, and I had decided upon a title.
Hurrying home I set to work to write. About nine o'clock the artist who had been engaged to illustrate the story called upon me and insisted upon it that he must decide at once what he should draw as the first illustration. He reminded me that the drawing must be made on wood, and that it would take two or three days to engrave it after his work upon it should be finished.
I pushed toward him the sheets I had written and bade him read them while I went on writing. Before he left a telegram came from the office asking what the title of the story was to be, in order that the paper, going to press that night, might carry with it a flaming announcement of its beginning in the next number.
From beginning to end the story was written in that hurried way, each instalment going into type before the next was written. Meanwhile, I had the editorial conduct of the paper to look after and the greater part of the editorial page to write each week.
The necessary result was a crude, ill-considered piece of work, amateurish in parts, and wholly lacking in finish throughout. Yet it proved acceptable as a serial, and when it came out in book form ten thousand copies were sold on advance orders. The publishers were satisfied; the public seemed satisfied, and as for the author, he had no choice but to rest content with results for which he could in no way account then, and cannot account now.