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CHAPTER XXII 71 they have deliberately stolen, hoping by this simple device to disarm criticism and prepare an alibi. It may be accepted as a fact that only fools and knaves describe their stories as being true. 3. For that matter the story the author honestly believes to be true because told him by a friend may be the rankest sort of a steal. There exists a class of persons who desire to appear to be unusually clever. They seek to combine in their persons the functions and knowledge of all trades and professions. They would attempt the cure of a sick horse with the same air of omnipotence as that in which they give the novice writer a "great" idea. It not infrequently happens that they will steal ideas to give away. Some time ago a writer in whom an Editor had become interested suddenly started in to offer stolen ideas; the themes of vaudeville acts, old plays, joke book stories and old newspaper clippings. The Editor frankly wrote the aspirant that it did not pay to steal and it developed that the author had been taking ideas given him by a supposedly clever friend. Had not the Editor taken the trouble to write for an explanation it might have been that the author, who later made good on his own hook, would have been recognized as a thief and barred from every oppor- tunity. 4. But it is not so much this aspect of the matter that this chapter would deal with as the use of true stories given in good faith by the persons to whom the incidents actually happened. As has been said above, the true story hampers imagination and this is fatal. A friend has given you a story. You desire to please him by reciting the inci- dent as it happened. Perhaps you have dressed the idea up a little, but have changed back in response to his grieved protest that the story is nothing like the one he told you. Consciously or otherwise you will hold this objection in mind and guard against it by writing strictly to facts. So well is this understood by old writers that some will not even permit friends to tell them plots. Developing the plot of another's mind is like trying to rear a strange infant. You cannot, no matter how good your intentions, give it the same love and care that you would bestow upon your own offspring. 5. Moreover the story is not new merely because it happened to some person known to you. This writer has personally seen dozens of plots based upon actual happening, in which it is believed that there are burglars in the house when in reality it was merely the cat or dog. IVIore than once a hint that the story was not new has evoked a spirited retort to the effect that the story could not be old because it had happened to Aunt Jane the time Uncle Henry went to Chicago or so on. Having happened to Aunt Jane, the writer seemed to think that it could not possibly have happened to anyone else, and yet Samuel Pepys, writing in his diary under date of July 11. 1664, has the same experience. 6. It is precisely the same with other true haooenings. We have been on earth thousands of years. There are millions of people now living. It is inconceivable that the experiences of each should be new.