The Knockers Club - 1913 Author:Nathaniel C. Fowler Jr. General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1913 Original Publisher: Sully and Kleinteich Subjects: Humor / General Humor / Form / Essays Humor / Topic / Adult Humor / Topic / Relationships Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text... more ». When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER in I AM in the presence of the editor of my desired publisher; but not in his dusty, book-walled sanctum, where the saints and sinners of Iciln-dried literature and moldy verse are sleeping peacefully between their yellowing paper sheets amid the stale air of Boston's petrifying exclusiveness. He is in my office. I have him where I want him, where I, not he, is master of environment. With an assurance, born of practice, he coolly selects a cigar from the bottom of my moistener box, -- I was never able to get a full box together, -- strikes one of my matches upon the bottom of my shoe, puts as much of his feet upon the top of my desk as there is room for, smokes in silence; and, after a while, takes another cigar, lights it, and remarks, with that familiarity which throws you off your balance: " Say, Joe, why don't you write a book of alleged humor?" "Why 'alleged'?" I ask. " Is there any other kind? " he questions. I remain silent. With a look of condescension, which there is no serum strong enough to dissipate, he resumes, " Joe, the market is short on humor. We're glutted with essays, plotless fiction, studies of what-not and nothing, of the likely-to-be and the impossible, but there isn't sufficient funny stuff to stifle the cry for it." I say nothing. " Now, what we want is a series of live-wire shocks, -- something that sputters because it's off its trolley. You're a sort of irresponsible genius, a three- quarter fool. Your mind is sprung...« less