Martin shook his head, but he had failed to keep back the wolfish, hungry look that leapt into his eyes at the suggestion of dinner.

“You haven’t a penny, Mart, and that’s why you’re walkin’.  Exercise!” She tried to sniff contemptuously, but succeeded in producing only a sniffle.  “Here, lemme see.”

And, fumbling in her satchel, she pressed a five-dollar piece into his hand.  “I guess I forgot your last birthday, Mart,” she mumbled lamely.

Martin’s hand instinctively closed on the piece of gold.  In the same instant he knew he ought not to accept, and found himself struggling in the throes of indecision.  That bit of gold meant food, life, and light in his body and brain, power to go on writing, and—­who was to say?—­maybe to write something that would bring in many pieces of gold.  Clear on his vision burned the manuscripts of two essays he had just completed.  He saw them under the table on top of the heap of returned manuscripts for which he had no stamps, and he saw their titles, just as he had typed them—­“The High Priests of Mystery,” and “The Cradle of Beauty.”  He had never submitted them anywhere.  They were as good as anything he had done in that line.  If only he had stamps for them!  Then the certitude of his ultimate success rose up in him, an able ally of hunger, and with a quick movement he slipped the coin into his pocket.

“I’ll pay you back, Gertrude, a hundred times over,” he gulped out, his throat painfully contracted and in his eyes a swift hint of moisture.

“Mark my words!” he cried with abrupt positiveness.  “Before the year is out I’ll put an even hundred of those little yellow-boys into your hand.  I don’t ask you to believe me.  All you have to do is wait and see.”

Nor did she believe.  Her incredulity made her uncomfortable, and failing of other expedient, she said:-

“I know you’re hungry, Mart.  It’s sticking out all over you.  Come in to meals any time.  I’ll send one of the children to tell you when Mr. Higginbotham ain’t to be there.  An’ Mart—­”

He waited, though he knew in his secret heart what she was about to say, so visible was her thought process to him.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you got a job?”

“You don’t think I’ll win out?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Nobody has faith in me, Gertrude, except myself.”  His voice was passionately rebellious.  “I’ve done good work already, plenty of it, and sooner or later it will sell.”

“How do you know it is good?”

“Because—­” He faltered as the whole vast field of literature and the history of literature stirred in his brain and pointed the futility of his attempting to convey to her the reasons for his faith.  “Well, because it’s better than ninety-nine per cent of what is published in the magazines.”

“I wish’t you’d listen to reason,” she answered feebly, but with unwavering belief in the correctness of her diagnosis of what was ailing him.  “I wish’t you’d listen to reason,” she repeated, “an’ come to dinner to-morrow.”