The Fable of the Author and the Dear Public and the Plate of Mush Filming Locations

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 Good-Night," 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. Mr. Coppie found a Chinaman at last who had not heard the pathetic poem, so he nabbed him for a companion and retired to the northern woods, where he hoped never to hear of his literary efforts again. Moral: When the nation weeps, the Johnstown flood isn't a marker.