Upton Sinclair by Floyd Dell

I.

He was, in a humble and practical way, already a writer. He had found that he had the "curious knack" of doing trivial little things -- verses, jokes, poems -- that pleased others. "They came from some little corner of his consciousness, he scarcely knew how. " And, most incredibly, they sold! He had been doing these things since he was fifteen. He was soon making as much as four or five dollars a week doing these things in odd moments.