AMO

MONG many other books, Peter B. Kyne is the author of "The Go-Getter", a short story which has been used by organizations both business and social across the country as a gospel of salesmanship and success. If Mr. Kyne occasionally becomes bored or amused by being considered the fountainhead of wisdom in matters of personal efficiency, if he is staggered when he finds himself the patron saint of "Go-Getter" Clubs and aspiring young clerks, he has only his personality to blame. He is that individual, not so rare in the United States, a successful Irish-American. He takes his own abilities and those of his countrymen seriously up to a certain point, then he is saved from Dr. Frank Cranism by his ready and virile humor. These two qualities - a worship of success and an ability to laugh brought to bear upon American life, backed up by experience as soldier, lumber salesman, storekeeper, traveler, make his stories important to the masses. Nor does he overlook the importance of the masses to him. The creator of Cappy Ricks, the author of "The Enchanted Hill", "The Pride of Palomar",

"Never the Twain Shall Meet", believes in his public and the debt he owes it. He is self educated for the most part, and he believes in self education. He has given this public of his what it desires and he intends to go on doing so. I have seldom encountered a writer so articulate in analyzing his own methods as this grey eyed, romantic yarn spin

ner.

He loves to tell or to write a story, and he dramatizes life, his friends, himself, in a manner authentically and charmingly Celtic.

"When an editor buys a story from me for a good price, he expects it to help his circulation. If I give him a product which is some abstruse expression of myself, and not a good story or a serial with as much pull as I can give it, I'm not an honest business man. If a stocking manufacturer sells an inferior product, he is soon called to account. Why should it be different with writers? The construction of a serial is definitely a technical job. It must be planned so as to give the editor a long first instalment, several shorter ones for the middle part, and a fairly lengthy final section. Each of these must have its punch, and its holdover quality, or it will not bring circulation to a magazine. I'd rather destroy twenty five thousand words of a story than fail an editor on a first instalment. That faith to him, and through him to the public, seems more important to me than all this talk about art. What's a definition of art, anyway? Here's one definition — "

And Mr. Kyne settled back to tell a story. It seems that a friend of his youth, a small-town tradesman who had allowed himself to take on the marks of success at the waistband, one day encountered the author on the street. He had just come from seeing a film version of one of the Kyne romances. His eyes were brimming with tears. tears. "It's great, Peter, great! I