with the price of the book in his pocket and a pair of pince-nez on
his face who will not scream and kick like an angry child if you
withhold my novel from him?

And just pause for a moment to think of the serial and dramatic rights
of the story. All editors wear glasses, so do all theatrical managers.
My appeal will be irresistible. All I shall have to do will be to see
that the check is for the right figure and to supervise the placing of
the electric sign

SPECTACLES OF FATE

BY P. G. WODEHOUSE

over the doors of whichever theatre I happen to select for the
production of the play.

Have you ever considered the latent possibilities for dramatic
situations in short sight? You know how your glasses cloud over when
you come into a warm room out of the cold? Well, imagine your hero in
such a position. He has been waiting outside the murderer's den
preparatory to dashing in and saving the heroine. He dashes in. "Hands
up, you scoundrels," he cries. And then his glasses get all misty, and
there he is, temporarily blind, with a full-size desperado backing
away and measuring the distance in order to hand him one with a
pickaxe.

Or would you prefer something less sensational, something more in the
romantic line? Very well. Hero, on his way to the Dowager Duchess's
ball, slips on a banana-peel and smashes his only pair of spectacles.