I wrote this letter once before but tore it up fearing to intrude, but now my need compels me to be frank.  I hope you will adorn our literature with many more beautiful compositions similiar to Brass Nuckles.

Yours truly

Mr Henry Phillips 454 East 34 St.

Mr. Urwick, after reading this remarkable tribute twice, laughed heartily and looked in his bill-folder.  Finding there a crisp ten-dollar note, he folded it into an envelope and mailed it to his admirer, inclosing with it a friendly letter wishing success to the coming infant who was to carry his name.

A fortnight later he found on his breakfast table a very soiled postal card with this message: 

Dear and kind friend, the babe arrived and to the joy of all is a boy and has been cristened Robert Urwick Phillips.  Unfortunately he is a sicly infant and the doctor says he must have port wine at once or he may not survive.  His mother and I were overjoyed at your munificant gift and hope some day to tell the boy of his beanefactor, Mr. Kipling only sent five spot to his namesake.  Do you think you could spare five dollars to help pay for port wine Yours gratefully

Henry Phillips?

Mr. Urwick was a little surprised at the thought of port wine for one so young, but happening to be bound down town that morning he thought it might be interesting to look in at Mr. Phillips’ residence and find out how his godchild was faring.  If the child were really in distress he might perhaps contribute a small sum to insure proper medical care.

The address proved to be a shabby tenement house hedged by saloons.  A ragged little girl (he wondered whether she were Ella Wheeler Wilcox Phillips) pointed him to Mr. Phillips’s door.  Meeting no answer, he entered.

The room was empty—­a single room, with a cot bed, an oil stove and a table littered with stationery and stamps.  Of Mrs. Phillips, his namesake or the other seven he saw no signs.  He advanced to the table.

Evidently Mr. Phillips was not a ready writer and his letters cost him some pains.  Several lay open on the table in different stages of composition.  They were all exactly the same in wording as the first one Urwick had received.  They were addressed to Booth Tarkington, Don Marquis, Ellen Glasgow, Edna Ferber, Agnes Repplier, Holworthy Hall and Fannie Hurst.  Each letter offered to name some coming child after these Parnassians.  Near by lay a pile of old magazines from which the industrious Mr. Phillips evidently culled the names of his literary favorites.

Urwick smiled grimly and tiptoed from the room.  On the stairs he met a fat charwoman.  He asked her if Mr. Phillips were married.  “Whisky is his wife and child,” she replied.

A month later Urwick put Phillips into a story which he sold to the Saturday Evening Cudgel for $500.  When it was published he sent a marked copy of the magazine to the father of Robert Urwick Phillips with the following note: