The Monticellonian., 1895-07-05
FLEMING'S GLE YER WIFE
BY LUKE SHARP.

l and thus harroW up the readers feel ing, as we go along with the recital of the curious game of cross-purposes at which Minnie Fleming and her hus- band played, l will state the facts of the case plainly at the beginning so that everyone may understand the situation.
 Minnie Fleming was a subdued, nuiet little woman with something like ten times the amount of brains her husband possessed, but she was not aware of it and would have been very i Indignant if anyone had ventured to luggest such thing, for she looked up to her husband with love, admiration and respect.
 Knowing Jim Fleming well, it al- ways seemed to me that his wife's adoration for him was entirely mis- | jealousy. for l have to admit that never could read with patience any thing Fleming ever wrote His work seemed to me, not to put it too plainly gulf of the slushiest sort, and there Is too much ot that kind of writing in the world now. Jim Fleming is big, gruf, somewhat good-natured person with a thorough belief in his own abilities, which. as 1 nave intimated, most of us do not think justitiab ble by facts He is the editor of "Pot-Shots, London weekly that used to have a large circulation which is now gener- ally understood to have fallen off on account of the tremendous competition there is in the journalistic business. It is paper that offers two thousand pounds sterling insurance money to the heirs of a man who k killed by falling out of balloon, if at the time of the disaster he happens to have copy of "Pot-Shots' in his pocket.
 Now it happened that Mrs. Minnie Fleming had literary ideas that were promptly crushed by her big husband. She possessed, Us l have said, an amaz- ing respect for his literary judgment, and with fear and trembling she had on several occasions submitted little stories to him, hoping that they might merit a place between the covers of "Pot- Shots.n but Jim ridiculed the stupidity of these yarns so severely that Mrs. Fleming. after d quiet little cry all by herself, showed him no more of these efforts at fiction. Neverthe= less. she thought her stories, if not 1 good enough for .Pot-Shots, might be palmed off on other less well edited | journals, so she took to sending her stories round to one after another of the London publications, getting them back as d general rule, but having one taken now and then-just enough sue cess to keep up her courage. You may be sure that she took good care not to let her husband know anything of these excursions into the fields of lit erature, but she hoped to be able to earn something with her pen, with the humble desire of helping dim out, if ever he wanted little additional money She had read pretty little stories about wives who had saved a penny to-day and threepenee to~mor= TOW, storing the coins away so that when they were poured out, on the coming of family crisis, they amount ed to q wonderful fund that tided over all the difficulties. She soon found that her chief customer was the editor of The Family Bouneer, a weekly pa per that went in strongly for fiction of all kinds Her little stories seemed to suit the kind of readers who took that celebrated journal, and, although the pay was small at first the crisis fund, as she called it, was constantly augmented.
 At last she received very nice let ter from the editor of The Family Bouncer. lie said he had been watch ing her little stories with interest for some time past and that he felt cer- tain she could write a serial If she set her mind to it. Without making any definite promises he wrote that he hoped she would try, and that she would let him see the results This letter filled the timorous little heart of Minnie with joy, and she set herself to work to write the long story.
 Mrs. Fleming wrote under the name of "Hilda Markham, and the result of the appearance of her first long story was that Greig X Co.,, the literary agents, wrote to her and offered to place any stories she cared to write at as advantageous prices as the market would afford, for commission of ten per cent, This offer she accepted, and the results were extremely gratifying to her, whatever they may have been to the editors who had to pay the in creased prices.
 And this brings us to the point where this story really begins. One editor generally knows pretty well which of his contemporaries, esteemed or other wise, has the largest circulation, and which has not, and Jim Fleming saw with dismay that the circulation of his own paper was falling rapidly, and that it Was evident that his penny pub lie was drifting over to The Family Bouncer In Investigating the req sons for this he quickly came upon the bald fact that the increase in his rival was largely due to the stories of the new writer, Hilda Markham. So he resolved to get story from that lady at ali hazards, and thus save his own circulation which was coming down like n man falling from a balloon, eager to bestow the insurance money on his surviving relatives.
 It was one of Jim's theories that women have no heads for business, and that of all women in the world his own wife had the least capacity in that direction. He made up his mind that he would go as far as one hundred and fifty pounds sterling for story by Hilda Markham, and he wrote a letter to her agents opening negotia- tions for a serial. As it happened, two