The Fable of The Author and the Dear Public and the Plate of Mush (1914)

Ernest Coppie an author was trying to grind out something that could be sold for enough coin to buy himself a good square meal He dashed off some sentimental guff called When Willie Came to Say GoodNight and it was punk He threw it in the wastebasket but when his friend came in he discovered it and set out to sell it He finally found a magazine editor who gave him a check for 500 and it was like picking money off a bush The author who was an old bachelor and a kid hater was tickled to death to get the dough but when letters came in congratulating him on his excellent poem and sympathizing with him he was bored to death