Martin lived in a small room where he slept, studied, wrote and cooked his meals. Before the window there was the kitchen table that served as desk and library. The bed occupied twothirds of the room. Martin slept five hours; only a man in very good health could work for nineteen hours a day. He never lost a moment. On the looking-glass were lists of words: when he was shaving or combing his hair, he learned these words. Some lists were on the wall over the kitchen table, and he studied them while he was cooking or washing the dishes. New lists were always put there in place of the old ones. Every new word he met in his reading was marked and later put down on paper and pinned to the wall or looking-glass. He even carried them in his pockets and looked them, through in the street or in the shop.
The weeks passed. All Martin’s money was spent and publishers continued to send his manuscripts back. Day by day he worked on and day by day the postman delivered to him his manuscripts. He had no money for stamps, so the manuscripts lay on the floor under the table. Martin pawned his overcoat, then his watch. One morning the postman brought him a short thin envelope. There was no manuscript in that envelope, therefore, Martin thought, they had taken the story. It was “The Ring of Bells”. In the letter the editor of a San Francisco magazine said that the story was good. They would pay the author five dollars for it. And he would receive the check when the story was published.