When Vance got into the elevated to return home he had five hundred dollars in his pocket. He had spent an hour with "Storecraft's" publicity agent, and besides the money his pockets were bulging with models of advertisements—"blurbs" and puffs of every conceivable sort, from an advertisement of silk stockings or face cream, or "Storecraft's" insurance policies, to circulars and prospectuses featuring the lecture tours managed by "Storecraft's" Arts and Letters Department. In the bunch, as Vance glanced over them, he found his grandmother's advance circular, and thrust it disgustedly under the others; but the disgust was easily dominated. He had the money in his pocket, a retaining fee, Hayes had explained to him. It was worth the money to "Storecraft" to have a well-known novelist on their publicity list; and he'd soon pick up the hang of the thing sufficiently to earn his advance, and more too. Fellows who knew how to sling words were what they were after, Hayes continued; many of the literary people didn't seem to realize yet that writing a good advertisement was just as much of an art as turning out Paradise Lost or Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Vance hardly noticed at the time that the pecuniary transaction did not take place in the Publicity Department, but in Hayes's private office, to which the manager invited him back for a cocktail and a final talk. He had the money in his pocket, and he was going to turn to and try to earn it, and as much more as he could. Compared with these monumental facts everything else seemed remote and negligible; and when Hayes, at the close of their talk, said a little awkwardly: "Well, so long… . Glad to hear your wife's all well again, anyhow," Vance felt a sudden compunction, as if he had been deliberately deceiving the first person who had really befriended him. "Well, she hasn't been very bright lately," he confessed with an effort at frankness.

"That so? Sorry to hear it." Hayes paused uncertainly, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I don't believe I know just where your burg is. Maybe I could call round one day and see how she's getting on—bring her a little grapefruit and so on, eh?"

Vance hesitated. Since they had left New York he had given his address to no one; even Eric Rauch had not been able to wheedle it out of him. In reply to Hayes he mumbled that he was hard at work on his novel, and had to keep away from people as much as he could—and he saw Hayes redden at the rebuff, and was sorry, yet could not bring himself to say more. "Well, you'll be round again soon with something to show us, I suppose?"

Vance said yes, and after another awkward moment the hands of the two men met.