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5. 

For them I wrote summaries of books, reviews for small newspapers and read proof; once I changed American spellings back to English in the proofs of a reprint of a Bernard Shaw book. Shaw had refused to let it be issued until the English spellings were restored. 

At the end of four months I had become very wise. For one thing, I could smell a phony want-ad. Ones like "editor needed to polish 1000 page historical novel; ten per cent of [[strikethrough]] same [[/strikethrough]] royalties guaranteed." Or "Writer can make fortune setting down my ideas. Fifty-fifty."

One day I answered an ad for a editorial job with a magazine that was just being started. A letter came back asking me to call for an appointment. But it turned out that the magazine was published outside of New York, and I was wise enough to know that all magazines were published in New York. I could well imagine how long such a venture would last. 

But to top it all, the letter said that part of the salary would be paid in stock in the company. Sighing, thinking how I might have fallen for this four months ago, I wrote a little note to The Readers' Digest and said no, thank you.