The editor stepped out of his office into the larger room beyond and said:  “I’ve a poem here that appeared in an American magazine about seven years ago.  I remember the date because I read it when I was at college.  Some one is either trying to play a trick on us, or to get money by stealing some other man’s brains.”

It was in this way that Edwin Aram first introduced himself to our office, and while his poem was not accepted, it was not returned.  On the contrary, Mr. Aram became to us one of the most interesting of our would-be contributors, and there was no author, no matter of what popularity, for whose work we waited with greater impatience.  But Mr. Aram’s personality still remained as completely hidden from us as were the productions which he offered from the sight of our subscribers.  For each of the poems he sent had been stolen outright and signed with his name.

It was through no fault of ours that he continued to blush unseen, or that his pretty taste in poems was unappreciated by the general reader.  We followed up every clew and every hint he chose to give us with an enthusiasm worthy of a search after a lost explorer, and with an animus worthy of better game.  Yet there was some reason for our interest.  The man who steals the work of another and who passes it off as his own is the special foe of every editor, but this particular editor had a personal distrust of Mr. Aram.  He imagined that these poems might possibly be a trap which some one had laid for him with the purpose of drawing him into printing them, and then of pointing out by this fact how little read he was, and how unfit to occupy the swivel-chair into which he had so lately dropped.  Or if this were not the case, the man was in any event the enemy of all honest people, who look unkindly on those who try to obtain money by false pretences.

The evasions of Edwin Aram were many, and his methods to avoid detection not without skill.  His second poem was written on a sheet of note-paper bearing the legend “The Shakespeare Debating Club.  Edwin Aram, President.”

This was intended to reassure us as to his literary taste and standard, and to meet any suspicion we might feel had there been no address of any sort accompanying the poem.  No one we knew had ever heard of a Shakespeare Debating Club in New York city.  But we gave him the benefit of the doubt until we found that this poem, like the first, was also stolen.  His third poem bore his name and an address, which on instant inquiry turned out to be that of a vacant lot on Seventh Avenue near Central Park.

Edwin Aram had by this time become an exasperating and picturesque individual, and the editorial staff was divided in its opinion concerning him.  It was argued on one hand that as the man had never sent us a real address, his object must be to gain a literary reputation at the expense of certain poets, and not to make money at ours.  Others answered this by saying that fear of detection alone kept Edwin Aram from sending his real address, but that as soon as his poem was printed, and he ascertained by that fact that he had not been discovered, he would put in an application for payment, and let us know quickly enough to what portion of New York city his check should be forwarded.