Sally Read Online Free PDF

kitchen to copy the recipes, unaware that she had them already in her copy of Mrs. Beeton.
    But first one person turned idly to the letter page and stared and showed it to another and another. Word of mouth is better than advertising any day, and soon copies of
Home Chats
were disappearing off the book stands and out of the kitchens as people exclaimed over Sally’s advice.
    It was her reply to the pregnant housemaid that caused the most furor. First of all, letter editors were not supposed to publish such letters. They were supposed to send vague, woolly replies in plain envelopes. But not only had Sally published it, but she had gone to town on her reply.
    She had urged the fallen housemaid not to waste her time with unnecessary guilt. The child must come first. The father, if he were not in a position to marry the girl, must be made to pay child support. The man was just as responsible as the girl for the unborn child. Sally had urged the woman to ask her mistress for advice, since “no lady with a true Christian spirit would even consider turning you out of doors.”
    So those who were shocked at Sally’s forth-rightness felt hobbled when it came to writing a blistering reply, because nobody wanted to be accused of lacking in Christian spirit.
    Then there was the girl who was being forced by her parents to marry the rich neighbor’s son. “Don’t do it,” said Aunt Mabel—Sally.
    “Money cannot buy love, and there are times when one’s parents do not know what is best for one. Honor thy father and thy mother—but by all means follow the dictates of your conscience.”
    Well, it was rather hard to argue with that one too.
    By the time the next edition of
Home Chats
reached the public, the bewildered Mr. Barton found he had to increase the print, and Sally was in dire need of a secretary. Letters poured in by every post, and she worked long and hard to answer all of them. Then one night Mr. Barton had a brainstorm. He had never thought of that incredibly dull magazine ever blossoming into anything else. But why not? He, James Barton, could still be the reporter he had always longed to be. He knew he was good.
    He walked out of the Red Lion, his pint of beer standing on the counter, untasted, and went back to the office and wrote a blistering article on the evils of prostitution. He had all the facts and figures at his fingertips, for he had written a free-lance article only the year before in a last-ditch attempt to prove himself. Now it would have a market.
    In another month the big newspapers were beginning to sit up and take notice of this new child in their midst. Sally had an elderly secretary, a friend of Miss Fleming recruited from the lodging house, and two whole pages in the magazine. Mr. Barton had hired a reporter and spent the nights in consultation with his printer. The headlines became bolder and the stories stronger.
    Following Sally’s example, Mr. Barton qualified his most lurid stories by pointing out that they were just what every God-fearing, thinking man and woman should know about.
    God, the Bible, and titillation was a heady mixture. The public lapped it up. They could read all those scandalous letters and stories and know that it was their Christian duty to read such things.
    Sales soared, and so did Sally’s salary. The dissolute relatives of the late Reverend Entwhistle became even more dissolute on the proceeds, and Mr. Barton could be seen drinking champagne occasionally in El Vino’s instead of sipping bitters in the Red Lion.
    Sally and her secretary, Miss Frimp, and Miss Fleming left the lodging house and took an apartment in Bloomsbury.
    Sally forgot about Emily and the children. Her whole life was centered in that one cluttered room behind the frosted glass door. She worked long and late. She enjoyed the heady feeling of exhaustion, the smell of success, the feeling of a day’s work well done, as she walked out into Fleet Street and looked down that famous canyon, breathing in