One day a person whose breath would easily cloud a mirror, he was so much alive, entered the office of The Rose of Dixie. He was a man about the size of a real estate agent, with a self-tied tie and a manner that he must have borrowed conjointly from W. J. Bryan, Hackenschmidt, and Hetty Green. He was shown into the editor-colonel’s pons asinorum. Colonel Telfair rose and began a Prince Albert bow.

“I’m Thacker,” said the intruder, taking the editor’s chair—“T. T. Thacker, of New York.”

He dribbled hastily upon the colonel’s desk some cards, a bulky manila envelope, and a letter from the owners of The Rose of Dixie. This letter introduced Mr. Thacker, and politely requested Colonel Telfair to give him a conference and whatever information about the magazine he might desire.

“I’ve been corresponding with the secretary of the magazine owners for some time,” said Thacker, briskly. “I’m a practical magazine man myself, and a circulation booster as good as any, if I do say it. I’ll guarantee an increase of anywhere from ten thousand to a hundred thousand a year for any publication that isn’t printed in a dead language. I’ve had my eye on The Rose of Dixie ever since it started. I know every end of the business from editing to setting up the classified ads. Now, I’ve come down here to put a good bunch of money in the magazine, if I can see my way clear. It ought to be made to pay. The secretary tells me it’s losing money. I don’t see why a magazine in the South, if it’s properly handled, shouldn’t get a good circulation in the North too.”

Colonel Telfair leaned back in his chair and polished his gold-rimmed glasses.

“Mr. Thacker,” said he, courteously but firmly, “The Rose of Dixie is a publication devoted to the fostering and the voicing of Southern genius. Its watchword, which you may have seen on the cover, is ‘Of, For, and By the South.’ ”

“But you wouldn’t object to a Northern circulation, would you?” asked Thacker.

“I suppose,” said the editor-colonel, “that it is customary to open the circulation to all. I do not know. I have nothing to do with the business affairs of the magazine. I was called upon to assume editorial control of it, and I have devoted to its conduct such poor literary talents as I possess and whatever store or erudition I may have acquired.”

“Sure,” said Thacker. “But a dollar is a dollar anywhere, North, South, or West—whether you’re buying codfish, goober peas, or Rocky Ford cantaloupes. Now, I’ve been looking over your November number. I see one here on your desk. You don’t mind running over it with me?

“Well, your leading article is all right. A good write-up of the cotton-belt with plenty of photographs is a winner any time. New York is always interested in the cotton crop. And this sensational account of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, by a schoolmate of a niece of the Governor of Kentucky, isn’t such a bad idea. It happened so long ago that most people have forgotten it. Now, here’s a poem three pages long called ‘The Tyrant’s Foot,’ by Lorella Lascelles. I’ve pawed around a good deal over manuscripts, but I never saw her name on a rejection slip.”

“Miss Lascelles,” said the editor, “is one of our most widely recognized Southern poetesses. She is closely related to the Alabama Lascelles family, and made with her own hands the silken Confederate banner that was presented to the governor of that state at his inauguration.”

“But why,” persisted Thacker, “is the poem illustrated with a view of the M. & O. Railroad freight depot at Tuscaloosa?”

“The illustration,” said the colonel, with dignity, “shows a corner of the fence surrounding the old homestead where Miss Lascelles was born.”