I intimated that the author might do well to get
better acquainted with his theme.
"You sold a story last week," said Pettit, "about a gun fight in an
Arizona mining town in which the hero drew his Colt's .45 and shot
seven bandits as fast as they came in the door. Now, if a six-shooter
could--"
"Oh, well," said I, "that's different. Arizona is a long way from New
York. I could have a man stabbed with a lariat or chased by a pair
of chaparreras if I wanted to, and it wouldn't be noticed until the
usual error-sharp from around McAdams Junction isolates the erratum
and writes in to the papers about it. But you are up against another
proposition. This thing they call love is as common around New York
as it is in Sheboygan during the young onion season. It may be mixed
here with a little commercialism--they read Byron, but they look
up Bradstreet's, too, while they're among the B's, and Brigham
also if they have time--but it's pretty much the same old internal
disturbance everywhere. You can fool an editor with a fake picture of
a cowboy mounting a pony with his left hand on the saddle horn, but
you can't put him up a tree with a love story. So, you've got to fall
in love and then write the real thing."
Pettit did. I never knew whether he was taking my advice or whether
he fell an accidental victim.
There was a girl he had met at one of these studio contrivances--a
glorious, impudent, lucid, open-minded girl with hair the color of
Culmbacher, and a good-natured way of despising you.
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