Tarrant paused and stretched his hand toward a cigarette. "Well, you're a beginner still … you've got to remember that… . You missed the Pulsifer Prize for your short story: for that blunder you'll agree we're not responsible; but it did us a lot more harm than it did you. We were counting on the prize to give you a boost, to make you a more valuable asset, as it were. And there was every reason to think you would have got it if you hadn't tried to extract the money out of Mrs. Pulsifer in advance." Vance crimsoned, and stammered out: "Oh, see here—"; but Tarrant ignored the interruption. "After that you dropped doing the monthly articles you'd contracted to supply us with, in order to have more time for this new novel. In short, as far as the New Hour is concerned, ever since the serial publication of Instead came to an end we've been, so to speak, keeping you as a luxury." He paused, lit the cigarette, and proffered the box to Vance, who waved it impatiently aside. "Oh, you understand; we accepted the situation willingly. It has always been our policy to make allowances for the artistic temperament—to give our contributors a free hand. But we rather expect a square deal in return. If any of our authors are dissatisfied we prefer to hear of it from themselves; and so do Dreck and Saltzer. We don't care to find out from outsiders that the books promised to us—and of which the serial rights are partly paid in advance—are being hawked about in other publishers' offices without our knowledge. That sort of thing does no good to an author—and a lot of harm to us." He ended his statement with a slight cough, and paused for Vance's answer.

Vance was trembling with anger and mortification. He knew that Tarrant had made out a case for himself, and yet that whatever wrong he, Vance, had done in the matter, came out of the initial wrong perpetrated against him by his editor and publisher. But he could not find words in which to put all this consecutively and convincingly. The allusion to his attempt to borrow money from Mrs. Pulsifer, the discovery of her having betrayed the fact, were so sickening that he hardly noticed Tarrant's cynical avowal that, but for this, they could have captured the prize for him. His head was whirling with confused arguments, but he had sense enough left to reflect: "I mustn't let go of myself… . I must try and look as cool as he does… ."

Finally he said: "You say you and Dreck and Saltzer want to be fair to your authors. Well, the contract you advised me to make with them wasn't a fair one. Instead was a success, and they've wriggled out of paying the royalties they'd agreed on on the ground that they've lost money on the book because it's not a full-length novel."