The day after the copyright was completed, I happened to mention the
incident to Mr. Archibald Clavering Gunter, author of Mr. Barnes of New
York, who had a publishing house for his own books. He immediately made
me an offer for The Chief Factor. I hesitated, because I had been
dealing with great firms like Harpers, and, to my youthful mind, it
seemed rather beneath my dignity to have the imprint of so new a firm as
the Home Publishing Company on the title-page of my book. I asked the
advice of Mr. Walter H. Page, then editor of The Forum, now one of the
proprietors of The World's Work and Country Life, and he instantly said:
"What difference does it make who publishes your book? It is the public
you want."
I did not hesitate any longer. The Chief Factor went to Mr. Archibald
Clavering Gunter and the Home Publishing Company, and they made a very
large sale of it. I never cared for the book however; it seemed stilted
and amateurish, though some of its descriptions and some of its dialogues
were, I think, as good as I can do; so, eventually, in the middle
nineties, I asked Mr. Gunter to sell me back the rights in the book and
give me control of it. This he did. I thereupon withdrew it from
publication at once, and am not including it in this subscription
edition. I think it better dead.
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